from the I-think-I-can...-I-think-I-can... dept.
Just like freight trucking, mining operations where trains haul heavy loads along the same route seem a high-potential application for autonomous vehicle technologies. Mining giant Rio Tinto has been busy exploring these possibilities in the Australian Outback and has now completed the nation's first autonomous heavy haul rail journey as it looks for more efficient ways to move iron ore around the country.
Rio Tinto's AutoHaul project has been underway since 2012 and is hoped to help the company expand its operations by allowing the trains hauling iron ore to largely control themselves. The company also has 69 autonomous haulage trucks in operation at its mine sites in the Pilbara, a remote region of north-western Australia.
Sounds unstoppable.
Related Stories
Rio Tinto expected to destroy 124 more Aboriginal sites:
[...] Mining giant Rio Tinto is feared to be pressing ahead with plans to destroy 124 Aboriginal heritage sites at an iron-ore development in Australia – despite the outcry over its destruction of sacred 46,000-year-old caves earlier this year.
Among the threatened sites in the mountainous region of Pilbara in Western Australia are rock shelters containing Aboriginal paintings, Stonehenge-like arrangements, and built structures that are believed to be of potential archaeological value.
[...] "Rio have stated in various forms that they will consider reviewing the agreement [but] we don't have a formal commitment," Grant Bussell, the Yinhawangka Aboriginal Corporation's chief executive, told a public inquiry led by the Australian parliament into the destruction of Juukan Gorge.
Rio Tinto, the second largest metals and mining company in the world, received widespread criticism for its treatment of the site, which led to the resignation of its CEO, Jean-Sebastien Jacques, and his two deputies earlier this month.
"We have 327 heritage sites and 124 will be destroyed by the Western Ranges expansion project by Rio Tinto," [archaeologist Anna] Fagan told the inquiry.
Previously:
Mining Co. Says First Autonomous Freight Train Network Fully Operational
Autonomous Train Completes First Journey Across Australian Outback
Mining 24 Hours a Day with Robots
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:26AM (2 children)
Invite some "friends" and acquaintances over for a train ride (hey, don't be a pussy; it will be fun). Also bring a sharp knife. Climb onto the autonomous train, then have fun for a while screwing around with things. Then later, when everyone is exploring different parts of the train alone, start murdering them one by one by stabbing them with the knife. After the job is finished, jump off the train and head home.
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Sunday October 08 2017, @03:53AM (1 child)
Ya might have to kill the train bull first. Otherwise it's golden, Ponyboy!
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @03:56AM
unmentioned in the story is that it arrived in Darwin. Fitting, that.
(Score: 1) by d(++)b on Sunday October 08 2017, @05:02AM (1 child)
At first I saw "treight frucking"... which makes no sense.
And it isn't, in all truth, exactly what I saw.
And it made me feel dirty.
Fortunately, I always look twice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @08:41AM
I flashed to "space trucking" ---
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22space+truckin%22 [google.com]