Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - December 2020 - 18

Autonomy kicks up
some
dust

Machines that move, haul and plow earth can capitalize
on autonomous systems today via increased safety and
productivity in the field and significant cost savings.

SafeAI and Obayashi
teamed to operate a Cat
725 articulated dump
truck retrofitted with
SafeAI's autonomous
platform on a Silicon
Valley test site.

utonomous operation for on-highway commercial vehicles
has grabbed headlines and public attention, rightfully so
since these haulers increasingly will share the roads with passenger vehicles. But there is a lot of interesting new core
work occurring in the off-highway autonomy space as well, according
to Brendan Chan, chief engineer of unmanned systems and active
safety at Oshkosh Corp.
" There's the hub-to-hub stuff that everyone's been talking about.
There's also a lot of geofence, low-speed applications where autonomy could be very useful and a very good value, " Chan said at the
2020 SAE COMVEC Digital Summit. Vehicles for yard maneuvering is
one such application.
Mining and agriculture are two off-highway sectors where automated systems have proven effective and adoption is growing.
Controlled environments and private property where regulations are
less restrictive are driving factors.
" The military is interested in autonomous systems as well, primarily
as force multipliers and for occupant safety, " said Chan. " There is
quite a lot of synergy in the autonomy space although the application may be different. It all boils down to the use case and the operational design domain. "

Value proposition
What the mining sector is lacking, despite working on autonomy for
the last 15 to 20 years, is that most of the autonomous systems are
OEM-driven, closed and proprietary, said Prachi Vakharia, head of alliances and strategic partnerships at Milpitas, California-based SafeAI.
The mining industry can learn three things, in particular, from the
passenger-vehicle side, Vakharia shared during the COMVEC session.
18 December 2020

First, working more closely with Tier 1 suppliers is vital.
Building an ecosystem of partnerships is another beneficial practice, she said, referencing the Ford and
Volkswagen collaboration to co-invest in Argo AI and
its self-driving system. " The OEMs are working together in this; they're not all building their own autonomy
solutions independent of each other, " she said.
The third point is the robust startup ecosystem
that exists with on-highway CVs and passenger vehicles. " These companies have made so many advances in autonomy, " Vakharia said. " They're using
the best in AI [artificial intelligence] and machine
learning. They are using and creating some of the
best hardware that's possible. "
SafeAI is trying to change this model by supplying
an open, interoperable autonomous software platform
with " industry-specific AI " that can be retrofitted to
existing mining and construction equipment. " Only 3
percent of mobile equipment at any mine today is autonomous, " Vakharia said. " So that tells you there's a
huge gap to be filled. "
Taking its own advice, SafeAI announced on
October 22 a partnership with Japanese construction
company Obayashi Corp. to operate an autonomous
Caterpillar 725 articulated dump truck on a Silicon
Valley test site beginning November 2020. The Cat
725 will demonstrate load-haul-dump cycles. The pilot
program is a precursor to the companies creating autonomous construction sites around the world.
Still, mining will see autonomy in production " much
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING

SAFEAI | NIALL DAVID PHOTOGRAPHY

by Ryan Gehm

Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - December 2020

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