Australian iron-ore major Fortescue has partnered with multinational equipment manufacturer Liebherr Mining to jointly develop and validate a fully integrated autonomous haulage solution (AHS) at its Christmas Creek mine site, which is intended to be the first AHS operating zero emissions vehicles globally.

The AHS enables control and coordination of mixed fleets of autonomous vehicles, including selected autonomous ultra-class mining trucks, autonomous road trains and autonomous light vehicles.

The solution brings Fortescue a step closer to delivering zero emissions autonomous haul trucks to its iron-ore operations in the Pilbara, Western Australia as part of their target to achieve real zero terrestrial emissions – for both Scope 1 and 2 – across its Australian iron-ore operations by 2030.

Fortescue has been at the forefront of integrating AHS into mining operations, having completed one of the largest fleet conversions to autonomous haulage in the mining industry in 2020.

The new AHS, which is being developed, tested and validated in partnership with Liebherr at Fortescue’s iron-ore operations, integrates a fleet management system (FMS), onboard autonomy kit for the Liebherr T 264 truck, and a high-precision machine guidance system for loading equipment.

The AHS, including the FMS and machine guidance solution, will also be made available to customers worldwide as part of Liebherr’s expanding technology portfolio.

The FMS is designed to optimise fleet use and increase productivity, while ensuring efficient consumption of fuel and energy, helping to reduce carbon emissions.

“Our deep expertise in autonomous haulage, that has come from operating over 200 diesel autonomous haul trucks across our mine sites, has enabled Fortescue and Liebherr to develop a FMS that uniquely targets efficiency and unlocks untapped capacity in our fleet,” says Fortescue Metals CEO Dino Otranto.

“The partnership with Liebherr has enabled us to jointly develop the FMS, which provides us with an original equipment manufacturer- [OEM-] agnostic solution that can be integrated with any autonomous platform including trucks, drills, watercarts or any other heavy mining equipment.

“This critical technology puts our business in full control of our development priorities and roadmap,” he adds.

Liebherr’s collaborative efforts will be beneficial, not only to Fortescue, but for the entire mining industry, states Liebherr Mining research and development, engineering and production executive VP Oliver Weiss.

Purpose Built

In August 2023, Liebherr announced the deployment of a fleet of four T 264 autonomous trucks in Western Australia for onsite validation, which marked the next stage of Liebherr’s development of a new autonomy product for the mining industry.

This onsite validation is currently taking place in partnership with Fortescue at its Christmas Creek mine site in a purpose-built facility for validating zero emission and autonomous haulage technologies.

The latest collaboration between Liebherr and Fortescue to deliver a fully integrated AHS marks an expansion of the existing partnership between the two companies.

Liebherr and Fortescue’s partnership to develop and validate the AHS was formalised in March 2023. Since then, the team has finalised the definition of the system and is now developing the system’s extensive features and functionalities for validation.

The partnership started in June 2022, when the two companies announced their intention to build a zero emissions haulage solution using Liebherr’s OEM experience and Fortescue’s fuel cell battery and battery-electric technology.

“This development will allow us to offer the global market a complete AHS, including a fully integrated FMS and machine guidance solution,” says Weiss, adding that these innovative technologies form part of Liebherr’s expanding range of technology products and are another step forward in the company’s strategy to become a total solution provider for the mining industry.