IT SEEMS THAT that the long-speculated future of mining is here. Rio Tinto announced that starting next April it will double its fleet of autonomous mining trucks at its Yandicoogina iron ore mine in Australia's Pilbara region. The move will follow two years of testing in which a fleet of Komatsu trucks dumped waste ore for 24 hours a day. A fully autonomous mine is something that has been talked about for years. Komatsu has already supplied trucks for autonomous mining to Corporation National del Cobre for a copper mine in Chile. Caterpillar recently announced MineStar, a software suite, that represents a major stride in the direction of autonomous mining (page 58).
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