SafeAI and MACA partner to create autonomous heavy equipment fleet
Published by Jessica Casey,
Editor
Global Mining Review,
SafeAI, a leader in autonomous heavy equipment, and MACA, one of the world’s leading diversified contracting groups, have announced a partnership to retrofit a fleet of 100 mixed vehicles. Together with SafeAI’s Australian partner, Position Partners, the companies will create one of the largest autonomous heavy equipment fleets in Australia, powering safer, more productive and more cost-effective mine sites.
SafeAI has built a next generation autonomous platform that brings the latest in artificial intelligence (AI) to heavy industry. The company’s platform is interoperable and vehicle-agnostic, enabling mining and construction companies to retrofit any vehicle, from any manufacturer, with autonomous technology. With advanced multimodal sensors and significant onboard processing power, SafeAI-enabled equipment can independently make efficient, accurate decisions to keep operations running smoothly and safely, 24/7.
“The mining industry has had autonomous equipment for more than 20 years – but we’ve gone as far as we can go with the first iteration of this technology,” said Bibhrajit Halder, Founder and CEO of SafeAI. “SafeAI and MACA are going all in on the next generation of autonomy – a generation that is AI-powered, versatile and scalable to bring meaningful, widespread change to the mining industry.”
MACA, a rapidly-growing contract miner that recently reported a AUS$13 billion pipeline of opportunities, needed a solution capable of scaling with its business. SafeAI’s interoperable retrofit technology unlocks newfound scalability and versatility by enabling the company to optimise its existing fleet, rather than forcing it to complete a highly time-consuming and costly transition to an entirely new fleet of autonomous vehicles.
“This technology is a game changer for our business, our customers and our industry,” said Shane Clark, MACA’s General Manager of Estimating and Technical Services. “SafeAI’s versatile, scalable solution is unmatched in our industry right now, and has profound implications for site safety, efficiency and cost-effectiveness. We expect to see quick take-up from our customers as they begin to see the tremendous impact of this technology.”
Through this partnership, SafeAI and Position Partners will work with MACA to retrofit its large, mixed fleet of haul trucks with autonomous hardware and software. MACA will be the first contract miner to deploy AI-powered autonomy for its customers, establishing safer, more productive and more cost-effective operations.
“With SafeAI’s scalable, AI-powered technology, we can quickly deploy autonomous heavy equipment across our sites – creating safer, more productive operations and setting a new standard for our industry,” added Mike Sutton, CEO and Managing Director of MACA.
This partnership follows a successful proof of concept between the three companies at the Karlawinda gold mine owned by Capricorn Metals and comes on the heels of a year of significant growth for SafeAI. In 2021, SafeAI expanded into four new countries, doubled its headcount, released an industry-first operating system and raised a Series A round of funding in June 2021.
Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/technology-digitalisation/09032022/safeai-and-maca-partner-to-create-autonomous-heavy-equipment-fleet/
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