Baidu Apollo demonstrates autonomous mining truck operation

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Baidu Apollo publicly showed its unmanned mining truck achievements with Huaneng Yimin Coal and Electricity Company (Yimin), a subsidiary of the state-owned China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd., marking the first machine-learning-powered intelligent vehicle application under mining scenario in China. 

The autonomous mining trucks; photo credit: Apollo

As demonstrated, the autonomous mining truck in use at the Yimin strip mine has achieved human-level automated productivity, stepping forward in the crewless mining transportation field. With high computing power and machine learning ability, Baidu Apollo is the first company to provide unsupervised on-mine operation with a fusion of crewed and crewless vehicles in China. 

After two years of cooperation, the two companies have built autonomous mining trucks and corresponding intelligent dispatching platforms, which was tested day and night on the Yimin strip mine. The intelligent mining solution is capable of numerous industry-leading productive functions, including autonomous navigation, automated discharge, active obstacle avoidance, self-driving under complex road situations, and precise unloading in designated areas.

Comparing to Apollo’s urban mobility service Robotaxi, mining scenarios are relatively controllable and straightforward, therefore easier to achieve fully crewless autonomous driving. The periodic achievement with Yimin signified another commercialized application building on Apollo’s eight years of autonomous driving technology development, aside from retail, ride-hailing, cleaning, and race track inspection.