Spring adorns Qian’an, intelligence initiates a new journey. On April 28, the “Unmanned Mining Truck Achievement Release and Smart Mine Site Visit Conference” themed “Smart Driving Empowers, Intelligence Creates the Future” was held at the Shougang Qian’an Conference Center.

The conference was jointly organized by the Metallurgical Mines’ Association of China (MMAC), Shougang Mining, EACON Mining Technology, Soly, and Yutong Truck. Leaders, experts, and distinguished guests from relevant government departments, renowned universities, research institutions, and enterprises across the industrial chain gathered to witness a critical step forward for the metallurgical and mining industry towards intelligent, green, and high-end development. Jiang Shengcai, Vice President of the MMAC, presided over the event.

Cao Xiangdong, Secretary of the CPC Qian’an Municipal Committee; Lei Pingxi, Chief Engineer of the MMAC; Jin Hongli, Deputy General Manager of Shougang Group; Zhang Lei, Chairman of EACON Mining Technology; and Fang Peng, Deputy General Manager of Yutong Truck, delivered speeches respectively, extending congratulations on the release of the unmanned mining truck achievements.

In the session of keynote reports, Wang Guofa, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Chief Scientist of China Coal Technology & Engineering Group, delivered a brilliant speech titled Development and Prospects of Digital-Intelligent Technologies in Mining. And Gu Xiaowei, Vice Dean and Senior Professor of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Northeastern University, made a remarkable speech titled Key Technologies and Applications for Green, Intelligent, Safe, and Efficient Mining in Large Open-Pit Mines.

In the session of achievement release, Shougang Mining officially unveiled its phased achievements in unmanned mining truck operations. Shougang Mining has achieved the normalized operation of unmanned mining trucks, thus effectively reducing labor costs, enhancing transportation efficiency, and achieving intrinsic safety, which provides a replicable and promotable “Shougang Mining Solution” for the industry. Focusing on the application effectiveness of unmanned mining trucks at Shougang Mining’s “Two Mines”, the EACON Mining Technology Institute introduced key breakthroughs in the scaled implementation of unmanned driving technology, addressing complex operational challenges such as deep-concave mining in metal mines, dispersed working faces, and confined scenarios.

At the conference, the White Paper on the Development and Application of Unmanned Driving in Open-Pit Mines was officially release. Compiled under the leadership of the Unmanned Driving Standardization Working Group for Open-Pit Mines, a subgroup of the Information and Intelligentization Subcommittee of the National Technical Committee 617 on Mine Safety of Standardization Administration of China, the white paper comprehensively presents the panorama of industrial standardization construction. It clarifies directions for technological innovation and standard development, and guides the standardized development of the industry and the building of a collaborative ecosystem, thus providing reference for promoting the high-quality and sustainable development of the industry, improving the mine safety standardization system, and enhancing intrinsic safety levels.

Shougang Mining, Northeastern University, the Marketing Center of EACON Mining Technology, Soly, and Yutong Truck jointly signed the Agreement on Deepening Industry-Academia-Research Cooperation for Smart Mine Construction. The parties will carry out in-depth cooperation in such areas as key technology breakthroughs, talent cultivation, achievements transformation, and standard formulation, aiming to create a ecosystem featuring “industry-academia-research-application” collaborative innovation to support the high-quality development of the mining industry.

In the afternoon, attendees of the conference visited the unmanned mining area and the digital-intelligent control center of Shougang Mining’s Shuichang Iron Mine. They made an on-site inspection on the company’s innovative achievements in terms of intelligent mining, intelligent ore dressing, intelligent transportation, and smart management. 

It is reported that since 2019, Shougang Mining has comprehensively launched the construction of intelligent mines with “unmanned operation” as the main theme, forming an overall construction framework of “Three Transformations, Two Diagrams, Four Platforms”. It has gradually achieved quality and efficiency upgrades from “human control” to “intelligent control”, allowing intelligent mine construction to become a “new engine” for the company’s high-quality development. In September 2024, Shougang Mining successively put into operation 43 unmanned mining trucks. Such practice helps to highlight the following “five distinctive features”: achieving the integration of technologies from Shougang Mining, EACON Mining Technology, Yutong Truck, and other parties; independently developing a top-level scheduling system for the intelligent vehicle dispatching system, enabling the mixed operation of 17 unmanned mining trucks and 11 fuel-powered mining trucks; independently undertaking the controllable batch modification of 22 electric wide-body vehicles, the first of its kind in the industry; independently building an intelligent monitoring platform and operation analysis system to grasp vehicle operating status in real-time, analyze operational data, and optimize efficiency in real-time; and realizing linkage control between the unmanned driving system and on-site equipment such as the automatic tipping system at the crushing station and the dry ore discharge system, achieving efficient vehicle loading, transportation, and unloading. The scaled and benefit-oriented application of unmanned mining trucks at Shougang Mining has yielded significant results in reducing staffing, achieving intrinsic safety, improving transportation efficiency, and enhancing operational economics.