TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES PTY. LIMITED

Methods and systems for mining described herein include a surface mine site including a processing site situated remotely from a blast site within the mine site and coupled by a network of roads. A first proportion of the roads are sealed and a second proportion of the roads have a maximum width in the range of 3 to 12 metres. A fleet of autonomous material handling units are located at the surface mine site, each autonomous material handling unit including a wireless transceiver for coupling to a communications network. The autonomous material handling units include a plurality of small capacity haulage vehicles, each having a maximum payload capacity of 80 tonnes or less. The autonomous material handling units are configured to be controlled by a control centre via the communications network.

Disclosed herein are a method and system for providing backwards compatibility between software versions of supervisory system software executing on a supervisory system and on device control software executing on a device under control of the supervisory system, wherein the on device control software executes on a computing module located on the device to act as an intermediary between the supervisory system and device software running on the device. Providing backwards compatibility between software versions enables upgrade schedules to be more flexible and no longer requires the supervisory system and all devices under control of the supervisory system to be upgraded at the same time.

A mining system for directing mine operations including a flow planner and a dispatcher. The flow planner receives operating parameters and global mine data and calculates a flow plan based on the operating parameters and the global parameters. The dispatcher then determines dispatch assignments based on the flow plan from the flow planner, and effects a dispatch of mining equipment based on the dispatch assignments.

Methods and systems for mining, for example a mining operation including: a surface mine site including a processing site situated remotely from a blast site within the mine site and coupled by a network of roads, wherein a first proportion of the roads are sealed and a second proportion of the roads have a maximum width in the range of 3 to 12 metres; a fleet of autonomous material handling units located at the surface mine site, each autonomous material handling unit including a wireless transceiver for coupling to a communications network. The autonomous material handling units include a plurality of small capacity haulage vehicles, each having a maximum payload capacity of 80 tonnes or less. The autonomous material handling units are configured to be controlled by a control centre via the communications network.

A method is provided to coordinate loading of a material in an operational area by machine actors including haul trucks and loading vehicles. The method implements quick and efficient loading of trucks with the material in order to ensure that they are highly utilized. A vehicle coordination assembly is provided to establish data communications with vehicle sensing systems of the haul trucks and of the loading vehicles and determine load-ready haul trucks. For each load-ready haul truck, a loading task is assigned to two or more of the loading vehicles for loading of the load-ready haul truck. Each task specifies a respective safe operating space in which a loading vehicle is restricted to operating. The assigned loading vehicle with a safe operating space extending over a side of the haul truck can only perform a dumping operation to the haul truck at any one time.

A vehicle coordination system is provided for coordinating the trajectories of vehicles on a road network. The vehicle coordination system comprises a plurality of vehicles each having respective vehicle position tracking assemblies that are in communication with respective vehicle communication systems for transmitting vehicle state messages including positions of the vehicles. A task assignment allocator is provided that is arranged to generate task assignments for each of the plurality of vehicles, including destinations in the road network for the vehicles. A vehicle coordination assembly is in communication with the vehicle communication systems via a data network for receiving the vehicle state messages. The vehicle coordination assembly is configured to determine respective paths for each vehicle to arrive at their respective destinations and determine trajectory control commands for each vehicle to traverse their respective paths whilst optimizing a predetermined objective and avoiding active interactions of two or more of the vehicles occurring in any shared areas of the paths. The vehicle coordination assembly is configured to transmit the trajectory control commands to each vehicle. The predetermined objective may be an aggregate traversal time for the vehicles.

Methods and systems for efficiently operating haulers of varying sizes for transporting mined material at a mine site. The haulers can include “right-sized haul trucks (RSATs)”. Methods and systems for efficiently using containers for mined material, including loading, handling and transporting mined material within a mine or from a mine. The containers can be carried on haulers such as “movable units” and “moving units”.

A system 10 for controlling a drilling operation by a drill rig 12 includes a receiver 16 for receiving sensed data related to the drilling operation. A processor 18 is in communication with the receiver 16 , the processor 18 processing the sensed data to estimate at least one geological property of interest of a zone 20 in which the drill rig 12 is active. The processor 18 is configured to operate as a decision engine 22 to optimize the drilling operation automatically by changing at least one drilling related parameter during the drilling operation based on the at least one geological property of interest.

A system for generating and updating an electronic map of paths travelled by vehicles in a geographical area, the system comprising: a plurality of vehicles located in the geographical area and each fitted with a position tracker and a vehicle communications system to transmit a series of chronological position reports in respect of the vehicle; a data communications network in data communication with the vehicle communications system of each of the plurality of vehicles; a map generation assembly (MGA) including a processing assembly and an electronic memory assembly, the map generation assembly being in data communication with the data communications network and arranged to receive the position reports, the MGA being configured to; generate batches of points from the position reports, the points corresponding to vehicle positions for respective vehicles at respective times, in the electronic memory assembly; operating the processing assembly to make batch-by-batch comparisons of points of a batch with positions of the clusters of the map; based upon the comparisons, operating the processing assembly to update the map by performing a cluster update procedure; operate the processing assembly to update the connections between the clusters subsequent to the cluster update to thereby produce an updated map; and transmit the updated map via the data network to a remote user.

A system 10 for controlling a drilling operation by a drill rig 12 includes a receiver 16 for receiving sensed data related to the drilling operation. A processor 18 is in communication with the receiver 16 , the processor 18 processing the sensed data to estimate at least one geological property of interest of a zone 20 in which the drill rig 12 is active. The processor 18 is configured to operate as a decision engine 22 to optimize the drilling operation automatically by changing at least one drilling related parameter during the drilling operation based on the at least one geological property of interest.