With the rapid development of technology, core technologies represented by autonomous driving are bringing human society into a brand-new era of smart driving. Open-pit mines, as representative scenarios for autonomous driving technology, are also moving towards the direction of L4 autonomous haulage commercialization. Recently, Eacon, a leading provider of autonomous solutions in mining areas, has achieved another milestone breakthrough. It has realized the regular “safety personnel off the truck” at the Zhundong Open-pit Coal Mine of National Energy Group, marking the first mining company in the industry to achieve multi-vehicle regular safety personnel off the vehicle and 24-hour autonomous operation, signaling that the autonomous driving industry has entered the eve of commercialization.
Safety is the primary prerequisite for unmanned operations. In order to solve the problem of safety personnel off the vehicle, the research and development team of Eacon has been committed to continuously improving the safety and stability of the autonomous system and hardware. By conducting numerous tests to understand the boundary of each module’s capabilities, technical details are reverse-engineered based on the goals.
In the preliminary stage, the Zhundong Open-pit Coal Mine of National Energy Group and Eacon worked together to identify potential risks in the operation scenarios and production processes of autonomous driving, analyzing five major categories including transportation roads, loading and unloading areas, vehicles, weather, and communication conditions, with a total of more than 500 potential risk sources. Based on this, Eacon has formulated multiple safety redundancy strategies to comprehensively ensure the safe and reliable operation of autonomous driving through vehicle perception, dispatch platform, vehicle control, spot inspection, and maintenance.
In terms of autonomous system design, Easy Control Intelligent Driving has referenced international specifications and standards for autonomous driving and mining machinery, such as ISO17757, ISO22737, and ISO19014, to create a set of autonomous system that integrates the “dispatch command platform, single vehicle autonomous driving system, network communication system, and collaborative operation system.” This system features clear functional boundaries, quantifiable evaluation of functional indicators, and strong testability, laying a solid foundation for the realization of multi-vehicle regular “without safety personnel”.
With the premise of ensuring mine safety production, efficiency is the ultimate goal after the safety personnel getting off the vehicle. Scientific and reasonable dispatch planning, real-time and accurate perception, and precise docking are key factor to ensure efficiency. Eacon ensures precise parking and operational efficiency, achieving a parking precision of less than 0.4 meters and lateral control precision of less than 0.5 meters during heavy-load downhill. Based on deep learning perception technology for mining roads and operation scenarios, Eacon achieves vehicle balance rolling on roads, accurate identification of retaining walls and work surface edges, and precise recognition of 30 cm objects in up to a distance of 20 meters, with real-time recognition accuracy of excavation lines accurate to 10 cm.
It is worth noting that after the regular “safety personnel off the vehicle” at the Zhundong Open-pit Coal Mine of National Energy Group, Eacon’s mining truck achieved a maximum speed of 35 km/h, and the efficiency of unmanned driving reached 80% of the efficiency of manned driving (not lower than when safety personnel are on board), truly realizing a safer, efficient autonomous operation. It has become the first autonomous driving company to achieve multi-vehicle regular safety personnel getting off-board in real operation.
Established in May 2018, Eacon has always adhered to the mission of “make transportation easier” and is dedicated to realizing unmanned and intelligent operations in mining areas through high-tech solutions. By entering real operational scenarios and refining technology, it has already achieved 24-hour regular unmanned driving operations at large-scale open-pit mines such as National Energy Group and TBEA, making it the first autonomous mining company to enter real operational scenes in the industry. By June 2022, Eacon owns more than 100 large-body vehicles, with a cumulative test mileage of 920,000 kilometers and a cumulative volume of transported materials of 4.1 million cubic meters, continuously leading the industry in various data.