Although it’s impossible to predict how an event will go in these uncertain travel-constricted times, I’m cautiously optimistic for the prospects of MINEXPO® 2021 after walking the show floor this morning and viewing the herd of magnificent mechanical beasts that has been assembled by leading giants like Caterpillar, Komatsu, and Liebherr.
It’s only when you get up close to these massive machines that you can appreciate their true magnificence. There’s no way that even 8K video can completely capture their size, scale, and splendor – not to mention the awesome amount of technology, design, materials, and engineering smarts that is packed into them.
Still, high-resolution video does have an increasingly important role to play not just in showing the machines roaming their native terrain. When combined with high-speed wireless, IoT sensors, and cloud technologies, it also opens up exciting new possibilities for operating these huge vehicles remotely from anywhere in the world.
As Komatsu demonstrated in real-time, remote operation doesn’t just enhance safety by providing the driver a much better overall view of what is happening around the vehicle than they would get if they were sitting in their cabin. It also enables increased productivity through more accurate measurement of load sizes and other criteria.
While remote and autonomous vehicle operation offer huge potential for transforming mining operations over the long term, in the immediate future one of the industry’s top priorities is harnessing the latest camera and radar detection technologies to boost safety by preventing accidents more effectively.
Providing solutions that enable companies to meet this objective is our aim with our VIA Mobile360 family of intelligent automotive systems, including the VIA Mobile360 Heavy Equipment Safety System that we are launching at MINEXPO® 2021 . If you are attending the event, please feel free to drop by our booth #555 in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Written by Richard Brown, Vice-President of International Marketing at VIA.
