Mining is a traditionally analogue business. After all, the industry's symbol worldwide is a hammer and pick. Yet, despite the sector's antiquated reputation, some major mining companies are taking a progressive stance and proving digitisation and automation can achieve much better operational outcomes. Known as Mine 4.0, the industry is seeing digital transformation creep into everything from trucks, drills and trains to back-office processes, such as procurement and supply chain logistics. Miners have very little control over the revenue side of their business, as the global commodities crash of 2014 to 2015, when prices plunged by more than 30 per cent, and indeed the coronavirus epidemic demonstrate.

Mining is a traditionally analogue business. After all, the industry's symbol worldwide is a hammer and pick. Yet, despite the sector's antiquated reputation, some major mining companies are taking a progressive stance and proving digitisation and automation can achieve much better operational outcomes. Known as Mine 4.0, the industry is seeing digital transformation creep into everything from trucks, drills and trains to back-office processes, such as procurement and supply chain logistics. Miners have very little control over the revenue side of their business, as the global commodities crash of 2014 to 2015, when prices plunged by more than 30 per cent, and indeed the coronavirus epidemic demonstrate.

Rio Tinto's boss of ports and rail Ivan Vella says the increasing bank of data the industry is generating is the greatest untapped "enabler and disrupter" available to the sector as he reveals expanding artifical intelligence across the global miner's business. Mr Vella, managing director of port, rail and core services at Rio Tinto, told the Resources Technology Showcase today that as the miner had moved to remote operations and asset automation it had generated a huge amount of data across its business. "Today, we track everything, our team is swimming in an ocean of data, which will be crucial to ensuring the efficiency and ongoing health of autonomous assets and systems," he said. "Without a doubt, it is the greatest untapped enabler and disrupter available to our industry." Mr Vella highlighted in his speech, 'Project Tempo', which Rio developed with EY data and analytics, Monash University and Strukton Rail.

Imagine a network of mine sites operated remotely--drilling, analysing core samples, collecting and interpreting data wirelessly from machine to machine, and transmitting real-time information into the cloud, absolutely without physical, human touch. In fact, it is fast becoming the reality in an industry that's increasingly powered by artificial intelligence a.k.a When we think of AI, we think of robots and machines capable of independent thought or autonomous movement. These are possibilities, and even realities, in today's world where practically anything can be automated. AI, however, goes beyond hardware, and its applications are farther-reaching than we can perhaps imagine.

A decade in the making, Rio Tinto's driverless train system, called AutoHaul, now manages roughly 200 locomotives that move iron ore from inland mines to coastal ports in Western Australia. The trains are operated hundreds of miles away, in an office block in Perth. Rio Tinto's network, which began formally operating in driverless mode late last month, is the first fully autonomous, long-haul freight railroad. Rail-company executives from countries including the U.S. and Canada have visited to see the technology in action, said Ivan Vella, Rio Tinto's head of iron-ore rail services. American companies say automating tasks once handled by crew will create fluid networks more akin to a model train set.

The world's largest robot has been unveiled and it is a completely autonomous railway system. AutoHaul has been developed by a mining firm and is being used to transport iron ore from mines to shipping ports 500 miles away (800 km) in Western Australia. This journey can be completed in just 40 hours, including the loading and dumping of the ferrous cargo. Its deployment is the end result of a project which has so far cost $940 million (£740 million). Rio Tinto, the corporation that built the infrastructure and hardware for the locomotive, says this could be the first step in transforming the firm's 1,000-mile (1,700-kilometre) network connecting 16 iron ore mines and two ports.

Mining corporation Rio Tinto says that an autonomous rail system called AutoHaul that it's been developing in the remote Pilbara region of Australia for several years is now entirely operational -- an accomplishment the company says makes the system the "world's largest robot." "It's been a challenging journey to automate a rail network of this size and scale in a remote location like the Pilbara," Rio Tinto's managing director Ivan Vella told the Sidney Morning Herald, "but early results indicate significant potential to improve productivity, providing increased system flexibility and reducing bottlenecks." The ore-hauling train is just one part of an ambitious automation project involving robotics and driverless vehicles that Rio Tinto wants to use to automate its mining operations. The company conducted its first test of the train without a human on board earlier this year, and it now claims that the system has completed more than a million kilometers (620,000 miles) of autonomous travel. In response to concerns from labor unions, Rio Tinto promised that the autonomous rail system will not eliminate any existing jobs in the coming year -- though it's difficult to imagine the project won't cut into human jobs in the long term.

In an industry such as mining where improving efficiency and productivity is crucial to profitability, even small improvements in yields, speed and efficiency can make an extraordinary impact. Mining companies basically produce interchangeable commodities. The mining industry employs a modest amount of individuals--just 670,000 Americans are employed in the quarrying, mining and extraction sector--but it indirectly impacts nearly every other industry since it provides the raw materials for virtually every other aspect of the economy. It's already been 10 years since the British/Australian mining company Rio Tinto began to use fully autonomous haul trucks, but they haven't stopped there. Here are just a few ways Rio Tinto and other mining companies are preparing for the 4th industrial revolutions by creating intelligent mining operations.

It's often the case that the more useful a robot is, the less exciting it is. The robots that do the hardest jobs tend to be straightforward solutions to straightforward problems, because that's what works. The (self-declared) world's largest robot is an efficient, grubby example of this--it's an autonomous train that recently hauled 28,000 metric tons of iron ore 280 kilometers across the Australian desert. Australia is a big place, and it takes a lot of effort to get material out of the middle of Australia (where it's not useful) to the coast (where it can be taken somewhere that it is). Trains are the most efficient way of doing this, and they travel back and forth through a whole lot of nothing, taking ore from mine to port and bringing the empty cars back again.

Ahead of China's own autonomous train reveal, mining corporation Rio Tinto have given the world its first fully-autonomous train, and it's currently in operation in Western Australia. Mining corporation Rio Tinto, which also developed the train, announced earlier this week the train had successfully completed its first unmanned mission, traveling nearly 100 kilometers (62 miles) without a person on board. "Rio Tinto is proud to be a leader in innovation and autonomous technology in the global mining industry which is delivering long-term competitive advantages as we build the mines of the future," said Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Chris Salisbury, in a statement. "New roles are being created to manage our future operations and we are preparing our current workforce for new ways of working to ensure they remain part of our industry." The mission, located at Rio Tinto's iron ore operations in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, is the first big step in the company's plans to have a fully autonomous train network.