OPINION: The future of mining 'lies with machine-to-machine communications'

What a difference a year makes for IAMGOLD's Côté Mine Project.

As recently as January 2019, the company had felt it necessary to defer the development of the Côté Mine Project – 130 kilometres south of Timmins and 5 kilometres west of Highway 144 – to cope with the projected price of gold at the time.

Under the leadership of CEO Gordon Stothart, the project has been the epitome of a modern mining project and bring high hopes of economic growth for the company and the neighbouring communities.

In March, the COVID-19 pandemic forced a temporary stand-down of the site development work. It was a great disappointment to everyone.

Fortunately, even after its base case feasibility study in 2018, the company continued to do a lot of work to de-risk the project and this has led to possible innovations that will improve the economics of the project.

By July 2020, the market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had become clear and a significant increase in the gold price made it possible to ensure the project would go ahead, and the company is now keen to bring it into production by 2023.

The renewed confidence in the Côté project creates the opportunity to introduce innovation.

IAMGOLD has kept a close eye on the implementation of autonomous trucks at Suncor’s Fort Hills mine in Alberta and at Teck’s Highland Valley Copper (HVC) in B.C.

The company is now considering what these vehicles can do for them, given the business success out West and in Australia and Chile.

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The phases of innovation that have brought autonomous vehicles to surface mines have taken several years to take hold and, even today, autonomous trucks look very similar to manually operated vehicles.

Today, many of the ancillary activities such as truck loading and ore upgrading are only now becoming candidates for conversion to completely digital control. This is a significant step beyond equipment that is manually operated at a distance – remote control – but it is also a small step on the journey toward the implementation of equipment that owes nothing to the deign of human-driven vehicles.

Some of the most recent truck designs look very different from the huge vehicles that are common in surface mines. This should not be a surprise – vehicles with no cab, no ergonomic chair or steering wheel are already around, but not in mines.

The development of self-driving cars has been moving very quickly, financed by companies such as Waymo (Google) and Cruise (GM). Some of these companies have plans to have fleets of self-driving cars on public streets by 2021. And already there are ‘islands of autonomy’ in the U.S. where groceries as well as people are delivered by driverless pods in some large gated retirement communities.

Mines should be in the forefront of these developments. They are completely closed systems with very few ‘unpredictable’ pedestrians. Everyone on a mine site is well trained, and in many cases, mine staff move around sites in vehicles that could easily become autonomous – effectively no pedestrians at all.

Mines are one of the best places to become ‘islands of autonomy’ because most of the limitations imposed by public environments do not exist.

Self-driving cars are already inherently safer than the vast majority of human-driven vehicles, with almost instantaneous reaction times for braking and taking avoiding action. Compared to the decision-making time of even the brightest, most alert human driver, the ability of self-driving vehicles to avoid collisions far exceeds any human driver.

On a closed-system mine site, this would be unnecessary: the protocols for right-of-way can be programmed, and all vehicles from huge haul trucks to utility vehicles could be managed without ongoing human intervention. Simply program in your destination and the vehicle will go there, quickly and safely with no risk of vehicle collisions.

The implementation of self-driving cars in public spaces is being delayed by possible interactions with the public itself, and concerns about the ability of self-directed vehicles to cope with the unpredictability of human beings. The application of this technology in mines is not limited by these issues or by current technology.

The mining industry has been limited by its reliance on human communication. The future lies with machine-to-machine communications, far more accurate and almost instantaneous than human instructions.

Open-pit mines are a completely closed system with a relatively small number of people travelling around the site, and in underground mines even problems that might be caused by weather conditions would be eliminated.

There is no doubt that the implementation of autonomous trucks at IAMGOLD's new Côté mine will be a significant step forward for mining in Ontario. But it is only the first step on the way to highly productive, low-cost operations where most people will be involved in supporting and maintaining the autonomous equipment that executes production activities.

Doug Morrison is the president-CEO of the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) in Sudbury.