Caterpillar recently celebrated a couple of milestones relating to the mining industry.
First, the company says that trucks equipped with Cat MineStar Command for autonomous hauling have moved more than 5.5 billion tons of materials in less than a decade. Cat’s autonomous trucks are on pace to eclipse previous record totals of material hauled in a calendar year, projected to be more than 1.57 billion tons in 2022.
Also related to the mining industry, Caterpillar executives and motor grader production team members recently gathered in Decatur, Illinois, to celebrate the production and sale of the 1,000th Cat 24 motor grader. The milestone machine, destined for Perth, Australia, having been sold by Cat dealer WesTrac Pty Ltd, to Rio Tinto Pilbara Operations, includes a special 1,000th unit commemorative plate.
Since the first fleets of Cat’s autonomous trucks were placed in Western Australia at FMG Solomon and BHP Jimblebar nine years ago, Cat trucks equipped with Command for hauling have journeyed nearly 124.3 million miles or the average distance between the Earth and Mars with zero loss-time injuries. Currently, more than 550 mining trucks are equipped with Command for hauling and are active across three continents.
“Caterpillar has grown the number of autonomous trucks in operation by 40% in the past two years,” said Denise Johnson, group president of Caterpillar Resource Industries. “We believe that automation is one of many keys to implementing technology that unlocks the value miners need when it comes to the energy transition toward more sustainable operations.”
Caterpillar has enabled 13 customers at 23 different locations to succeed with full site autonomous haulage solutions.Caterpillar
Through an agreement with Caterpillar, BHP is replacing its entire haul truck fleet with autonomous solutions. Spanning the 210- to 410-ton class sizes, the Cat 789D, 793D, 793F, 797F and electric-drive 794 AC and 798 AC mining trucks are capable of fully autonomous operation.
To date, Caterpillar has 13 customers at 23 different locations to with full-site autonomous haulage solutions. In addition, over the last three years, Cat has won eight of nine greenfield autonomy sites.
