World's first fleet of 100 5G-A autonomous electric mining trucks launched at Yimin mine

Powered by a 5G-Advanced (5G-A) network, the mine became the world's first opencast mine to achieve large-scale vehicle-cloud-network synergy, which has greatly improved production safety and set a new benchmark for intelligent mining.

As coal is China's primary energy source and key to its energy strategy, the country has been driving the transition towards a high-end, intelligent, and green coal industry. To this end, China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd. (China Huaneng) has partnered with Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Co., Ltd. (XCMG), Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei), and State Grid Smart Internet of Vehicles Co., Ltd. on a joint innovation project to develop the world's first zero-carbon, autonomous, and intelligent opencast mine transportation system, which pioneers high-quality industry development.

Li Shuxue, Chairman of Huaneng Inner Mongolia Eastern Energy Co., Ltd., stated at a launch event in Hulunbuir (Inner Mongolia) on 15 May that the company is actively working to drive an energy transition in mining transportation. As a key part of these efforts, it is replacing fuel vehicles with electric ones to build safe, intelligent, and green mines.

Supported by technological innovations, the Huaneng Ruichi autonomous electric mining trucks are industry-leading in several areas: Each truck can carry a load of 90 metric t and operate continually in extreme cold of –40°C, while delivering 120% of the comprehensive operational efficiency of a manually-driven truck. 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, maximising the strengths of collaborative truck fleet operations.

Furthermore, as the first autonomous mining truck in China without a driver's cabin, Huaneng Ruichi places personnel safety above all else, keeping them away from equipment hazards and harsh environments to greatly reduce related risks. 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, noted that 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. 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.

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