As Europe seeks to secure access to critical raw materials, underground extraction must become safer, more efficient, and less dependent on scarce skilled labour. Autonomous machines offer a practical path to achieving these goals while reducing operator exposure to demanding underground environments.
“The next step is to take raw materials under our feet, under our ground, in Europe, and not on the other side of the world. For that, we are not going to send people underground, but we are going to send machines that are capable to do it by themselves,” said Marc Melkonian, co-president at Aramine, in charge of the equipment division.
Aramine provides the L140B Loader, a battery-powered machine launched in 2016 to bring new technology into underground mining and designed with the openness required for autonomous control. Featuring a 1.3 t payload and engineered specifically for narrow-vein mining, the L140B combines productivity, manoeuvrability, and operational flexibility in confined underground environments. Operating with zero local CO2 emissions, it supports safer and cleaner mining environments while enabling the transition toward autonomous production.
As automation system provider, sensmore turns the L140B into an autonomous production machine. It integrates the automation stack, safety architecture, machine control, and operational interfaces required for production use, making the automated loader work as part of the underground production environment around it.
At Cemex, sensmore connected the automated L140B to the full underground production process: machine control, conveyor belt, functional safety systems, network infrastructure, operational interfaces, and production flow. This is what makes the system production-ready: the machine does not operate as a standalone robot, but as part of the underground workflow.
“Autonomy in heavy industry only creates real value when it is vertically integrated into the production environment,” said Maximilian Rolf, CEO and Co-founder of sensmore. “At Cemex, we are integrating the Aramine L140B into the entire underground process. That is how autonomous machines become part of industrial reality today.”
“Implementing this system is a major milestone for us. It helps improve productivity, reduces operator exposure to underground risks, and supports our journey toward safer and lower-emission mining operations” said Christian Zinnecker, coordinator underground operations, extraction & blasting at Cemex.
The operational impact is already visible. The automated L140B can operate autonomously for up to eight hours, compared with around five hours in manned mode. This translates into greater machine availability, fewer repetitive tasks for operators, and a safer underground working environment. The battery-electric machine also delivers zero local CO2 emissions during operation.
Together, Aramine, sensmore, and Cemex are demonstrating that autonomous underground extraction is no longer a future concept. It is becoming an industrial reality: safer for people, easier to operate, and ready to support the next generation of underground resource production.