The present disclosure relates to a system and a method of controlling the movement of a tracked mobile mining machine having one or more articulated vehicle units. The control system works by taking input from manual or automated input means, the input serving as a set operating value for at least one driving parameter. The controller generates control signals, which are sent to regulating means that actuate the motor of the mobile mining machine. Using sensors on the machine, actual values of the driving parameter are measured in real-time and fed to the controller for comparison with the original set values. Any difference in the values is compensated for when the controller sends control signals to the regulating means causing readjustment of the driving parameter of the mining machine. The control system is applicable to crawler-driven powered vehicle units to ensure synchronous crawler movement for both linear and non-linear paths.

A mining machine is disclosed. The mining machine may include a mobile ranging device, a movement sensor device, and a control unit. The mobile ranging device may be configured to communicate with a location sensor device and cause the location sensor device to transmit location data relating to a location of the mining machine. The movement sensor device may be configured to transmit movement data relating to a movement of the mining machine. The control unit may be configured to receive coordinate data relating to a plurality of zones and a plurality of drawpoints of a tunnel, the location data, and the movement data. The control unit may identify an active zone, determine a machine heading, determine a machine articulation, identify an active drawpoint based on the active zone, the machine heading, or the machine articulation, and cause an action to be performed in connection with the active drawpoint.

A vehicle control system and method forecast an upcoming intersection area of projected paths of a first vehicle system and a second vehicle system based on current movements of the first vehicle system and the second vehicle system. A reach distance of the first vehicle system is calculated as a distance from a leading edge of the first vehicle system to the intersection area. A difference between the reach distance of the first vehicle system and a designated gap distance with the designated gap distance are compared. The speed of the first vehicle system is automatically reduced responsive to the difference being no smaller than the designated gap distance and/or the first vehicle system is stopped responsive to the difference being smaller than the designated gap distance.

A management system of a work site in which an unmanned vehicle and a manned vehicle operate in a mixed manner includes: a determination unit that determines whether or not the manned vehicle exists in a predetermined area of the work site; and a command unit that outputs a work command to cause the unmanned vehicle or the manned vehicle to travel to a work point set in a work place based on the determination result.

A system for managing a work site includes: an identification unit that identifies a discharging position of a manned vehicle in the work site where an unmanned vehicle and the manned vehicle operate in a mixed manner; and an operation control unit that controls operation of the unmanned vehicle based on the discharging position.

The invention provides a method for controlling a plurality of vehicles which are repeating a cycle of driving along a route, which has at least one single vehicle area (SLTA1, . . . , SLTAm, SP, TP), characterized by—determining speed profiles for the vehicles,—creating a set of different activation times (t11, t21, tr11, tr21) for the vehicles, from an activation position (SP, TP) of the cycle,—simulating vehicle movements through the cycle, with the speed profiles, and the created set of activation times (t11, t21, tr11, tr21),—repeating, a plurality of times, the steps of creating a set of activation times, and simulating vehicle movements, wherein the created set of activation times are different from one repetition to another,—selecting, for controlling the vehicles, from the sets of activation times created by the repetition of the step of creating a set of activation times, a set of activation times (t12, t22, tr12, tr22) for which the simulation shows that there is a minimum time overlap (to21) of vehicles at any of the at least one single vehicle area, and—controlling the vehicles according to the speed profiles and the selected set of activation times.

A system for a vehicle is provided herein that includes a position sensor configured to identify a location of the vehicle and a heading of the vehicle. A human-machine interface (HMI) is operatively coupled with the vehicle. A controller is in electronic communication with the position sensor and the HMI. The controller is configured to access one or more databases to identify a first location, a first heading, and a first speed for the vehicle, and to identify a first aggregate heading value and a first aggregate speed value associated with the first location; determine that either the heading or the speed of the vehicle is outside of acceptable ranges; and issue a wave-off alert to the HMI when the vehicle is outside of acceptable ranges.

Mines and construction sites are pnme applications for automation. The invention is composed of a protocol that allows multiple machines to be coordinated from a single application. The invention provides what in classical control is called a coordination layer between the machines (4D-RCS). This coordination layer is currently provided by humans as machines only interact with each other in the physical world, but there is no infrastructure to have them coordinated from an autonomous control standpoint. The system described in the present invention is a coordinating mining or construction machinery that is comprised of two or more mining (or construction) equipment with sensors and actuators, a database of stored behavior and sensing capabilities for each machine, a scripting editor that can concatenate sensing and behavior blocks, a controller (centralized or at each machine) that can interpret the scripts and command the machines according to the script, and a communication infrastructure that allows the machines to communicate.

The invention relates to a method of controlling a plurality of vehicles, performing the same mission cycle, comprising mapping a first set of planned degrees of progress (CCP1) to the cycle, controlling the vehicles to start the cycle at respective different points in time, determining deviations of the vehicles from a respective planned degree of progress (CCP1i) of the first set of planned degrees of progress (CCP1), mapping, based on the determined deviations, a second set of planned degrees of progress (CCP2) to the cycle, and controlling the vehicles so as to minimize deviations of the vehicles from a respective planned degree of progress (CCP2i) of the second set of planned degrees of progress (CCP2).

Systems and methods are disclosed for managing task assignments for a fleet of haul trucks at a mine site. An assignment engine may: receive state data for a haul truck including haul weight data and second state data for the mine site that is indicative of a plurality of available tasks and associated task material weight data; assign a task to the haul truck by inputting the state data into a trained reinforcement-learning model, wherein: the model has been trained to learn an assignment policy that optimizes a reward function, such that the learned policy accounts for vehicle performance variance due to changing vehicle haul weight and/or road conditions; and cause the at least one haul truck to be operated according to the at least one task assignment.