Brockman Mine, Pilbara, Australia
The Brockman mine is an iron ore mine located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, 60 kilometres
north-west of Tom Price. It is sometimes also referred to as Brockman 2 mine to differentiate between it and Rio Tinto's new Brockman 4 mine, also in the area.
The mine is fully owned and operated by Rio Tinto Iron Ore. In the calendar year 2009, the combined Pilbara operations produced 202 million tonnes of iron ore, a 15 percent increase from 2008. The Pilbara operations accounted for almost 13 percent of the world's 2009 iron ore production of 1.59 billion tonnes. Source:
Wikipedia, Brockman Mine.
Komatsu
& Rio Tinto Enter into Agreement for 150 Autonomous Truck Deployment into Pilbara Iron Ore operations by 2015
02 November 2011
Komatsu Ltd. (President and CEO: Kunio Noji) (hereinafter Komatsu) and Rio Tinto (Chief Executive: Tom Albanese) November 1 in Japan, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (hereinafter MOU) to take the next step in large-scale implementation of Komatsu Autonomous Haulage System (hereinafter AHS) by committing to deploy at least 150 Komatsu AHS trucks into Rio Tinto Iron Ore Pilbara operations in Western Australia by the end of 2015 with equipment deployment commencing in 2012.
Rio Tinto has been testing Komatsu AHS, the world's first commercial autonomous mining haulage system, in the Pilbara since December 2008. During the trials the AHS technology demonstrated clear value to the business especially in the areas of health, safety and productivity.
Source:
Komatsu Press Release.
AHS is an integrated system to operate
super-large driverless dump trucks
autonomously by taking advantage of
information and communication
technologies (ICT) such as the
high-precision global positioning system
(GPS), obstacle detection sensors, a
wireless communication network system
and a fleet management system. Read
more: Komatsu Autonomous Haulage System.