The first independently developed mining intelligent robot using independent components is officially put into operation!

A new unmanned team has been recruited at the open-pit coal mine in Dongsheng District, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. This is the "CarMo" new energy mining intelligent transportation robot independently developed by China with independent intellectual property rights .

"CarMo" integrates industry resources and focuses on tackling a number of technical difficulties. It has achieved a number of technological breakthroughs in chassis function integration, core control algorithms, and perception and positioning fusion. The localization rate of key components is over 95%. It can be used for heavy-load material transportation in multiple scenarios such as open-pit mines and bulk cargo terminals. It is a truly full-time unmanned mining transportation equipment.

This robot, which is 8980mm long, 3550mm wide and 3420mm high, is not simply a reverse improvement from a traditional mining car to an unmanned one. Instead, it is the first time that a design has been adopted to eliminate the cab, achieving the forward research and development results of a wire-controlled chassis and unmanned driving. The "CarMo" robot is designed based on new energy, with a rated 450kw dual-motor drive unit and a powerful battery. The power output is 50% higher than that of a pure electric wide-body car with the same nuclear load, reaching 525kwh.

The name of the transport robot "CarMo" has an even more interesting story. CarMo is the abbreviation of Carry Mountains, which means moving mountains. It is in line with the smart mining operating system of Zhongke Huituo - Yugong YUGONG.

According to Kong Fanfei, deputy mayor of Ordos Municipal People's Government, Ordos's proven coal and natural gas reserves account for 1/6 and 1/3 of the country's total respectively, and its coal sales accounted for 1/5 of the country's total last year. It has higher requirements for the construction of smart mines and has the opportunity to become one of the important bases for digital smart mines in the future.

Relevant data shows that in the six months of real-scene trial operation of the mountain-carrying CarMo robot, it was calculated that a single vehicle can reduce carbon emissions by 1,200 tons per year. Based on the calculation that each ton of diesel produces 3.1 tons of carbon dioxide, a total of nearly 400 tons of diesel was saved. Calculated at a price of 9,000 yuan per ton, the annual expenditure can be reduced by about 3.6 million yuan. Compared with traditional equipment, each mining intelligent transport robot can save the need for three drivers, saving about 400,000 yuan in labor costs each year. One transport robot can reduce the mine's expenses by more than 4 million yuan.

With the increase of safety awareness and the increase of labor costs, mining areas have followed suit to carry out digital transformation . Intelligent transport robots in mines have ushered in good market opportunities. Data from relevant market research institutions show that the global intelligent mining car market size was about US$1 billion in 2019. It is expected that by 2026, this market size will reach US$2.3 billion, with an annual compound growth rate of about 9.4%. Among them, North America has the largest market share of intelligent mining cars, accounting for nearly 40% of the global market share.

Zhongke Huituo relies on the "Xuanwu" high-performance domain controller developed completely independently, with a perception system composed of many sensors such as laser radar, millimeter-wave radar and camera , plus a high-precision positioning system composed of GNSS and IMU, so that the unmanned driving system of the mining truck has the characteristics of high software and hardware integration, reliability, system compatibility and safety. The unmanned truck has the ability to make intelligent decisions and autonomous path planning in complex scenarios, guiding the vehicle to complete the task safely, becoming the first robot in China to realize production operations without a safety officer in the car.

It was learned during this launch that Zhongke Huituo will also provide a full-stack solution for open-pit mines. The full-stack solution develops a complete set of unmanned mining technologies based on the "cloud-edge-end" collaborative integrated architecture, which is divided into two modules: cloud-based scheduling management and unmanned driving of mine vehicles. The transport robots can cooperate with excavators, bulldozers, etc. to achieve intelligent and unmanned operation of all models, multiple types of mines, and all scenarios, thereby improving production efficiency and safety and reducing costs.

The open-pit coal mine in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where the test was conducted, is the first domestic technology transformation project for mining trucks with a maximum tonnage of 290 tons. It has broken through the "bottleneck" technology of foreign controllers for many years, and laid a solid foundation for the group to achieve the goal of unmanned driving of all mining trucks with demonstration effect, thereby accelerating the application of advanced technologies. According to CEO Chen Long, the current "CarMo" new energy mining intelligent transport robot has been polished for two years, and more mining intelligent robots will be launched in the future . Demonstration projects for safe operation, the company is ready for large-scale commercialization.