Chinese telecoms equipment vendor Huawei is providing a 5G Advanced (5G-A) communications network for a fleet of 100 autonomous electric mining trucks, which have officially entered operation at the Yimin open-pit coal mine in Inner Mongolia, China.
Powered by its 5G-A network, Huawei says the mine is the world's first open-pit mine to achieve large-scale vehicle-cloud-network synergy, which the telco claims has greatly improved production safety and set a new benchmark for intelligent mining.
The 5G-A network is deployed in the Yimin mining area to provide precise network coverage for autonomous driving routes, achieving smooth vehicle-cloud synergy.
It is the world's first open-pit mine powered by 5G-A, featuring 500 Mbps uplink and 20 ms latency, and providing network support for HD video backhaul and cloud-based dispatching of autonomous mining trucks.
Huawei says in the future, 5G-A coverage will support 24/7 operations of more than 300 autonomous mining trucks in the mining area, further improving safety and efficiency.
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"Each truck can carry a load of 90 metric tons and operate continually in extreme cold of –40°C, while delivering 120% of the comprehensive operational efficiency of a manually-driven truck," Huawei says.
"In addition, Huawei Cloud provides the Commercial Vehicle Autonomous Driving Cloud Service (CVADCS) that uses a crowdsourced map for real-time operational location updates.
"This enables fast route optimisation, reduces waiting times, and improves operational efficiency, maximizing the strengths of collaborative truck fleet operations.
"It is a paramount challenge to safeguard personnel and equipment safety while improving productivity in extreme working conditions such as freezing temperatures at high altitudes, and heavy rain, snow, and dust.
"Addressing such challenges places high requirements on data processing and system collaboration capabilities."
Zhang Ping'an, Executive Director of Huawei and CEO of Huawei's Cloud Computing Business Unit, said Huawei has provided AI algorithms for open-pit mining.
"These algorithms enable precise sensing for autonomous vehicles and efficient collaboration on the cloud, which is uniquely suited to accelerating the coal mining industry's transition from manual to intelligent operations," Zhang said.
"This success case is an example of how digital and intelligent technologies can drive the high-quality development of the coal mining industry.
"It is not only a lighthouse project that demonstrates China's innovative integration of 5G, cloud, AI, and new energy technologies, but an exploration into how AI can be used to tackle pressing challenges in specific industry scenarios."