Komatsu Customers Surpass Three Billion Metric Tons Moved Autonomously
Marking another industry first for autonomous haulage, mining companies have now hauled more than three billion metric tons of materials leveraging Komatsu’s FrontRunner Autonomous Haulage System (AHS).
Today’s FrontRunner system operates around the clock, hauling copper, iron ore, oil sands, and coal at 11 customer sites on three continents. At the end of June 2020, there were 251 trucks in operation, with an additional 100 (mainly from installing AHS retrofit kits) planned to deploy within FY2020.
“Our mining customers’ ongoing investment in technology and equipment to transition to autonomous haulage underscores the value the system provides,” said Toshio Kurokawa, general manager of marketing, Mining Business Division, Komatsu. “We are gratified to have helped our customers save hundreds of millions of dollars while autonomously moving another billion metric tons of essential minerals and driving for zero harm. We are also honored that autonomous haulage has been a valuable resource to help our customers mitigate risks associated with the global COVID-19 pandemic.”
The FrontRunner sytem is designed to enable manually operated equipment – such as loaders, dozers, graders, and light vehicles – to seamlessly interact in an autonomous truck environment. Komatsu recently introduced system functionality to enable manual haul trucks to also operate with the autonomous trucks.
To further support the growth of autonomy in mining for its customers, Komatsu is leading initiatives within ISO to develop standards for interoperability between Komatsu and non-Komatsu autonomous vehicles.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.