World's First Fleet of 100 5G-A Autonomous Electric Mining Trucks Launched at Yimin Mine, Realizing Safer, Greener Mining

Inner Mongolia, China is renowned for its vast grasslands, picturesque landscapes, rich nomadic culture, and hearty culinary traditions. This is also a region abundant in mineral resources, and the local mining industry is actively embracing cutting-edge technologies to advance digital and intelligent transformation.

These technologies are disrupting traditional operating models and enabling long-term sustainable growth. One of the pioneers in this area is the Yimin open-pit mine run by Huaneng Inner Mongolia Eastern Energy Co., Ltd. deep in the hinterland of the Hulunbuir grassland.

"Ding!" With a crisp whistle, a Huaneng Ruichi autonomous electric mining truck loaded with earth and rocks departs from the loading area, joining other fully-loaded trucks of its kind. Then an empty truck returning from a dumping site immediately parks in the freshly-vacated spot. Against the cold lashings of –40°C winds, 100 autonomous electric mining trucks like these operate smoothly throughout the mining area. These intelligent and highly-efficient trucks are enabled by 5G-Advanced (5G-A) connectivity and green solar power. They make up the world's first automated, intelligent, and low-carbon mining transportation system in cold and high-altitude environments.

Coal remains China's primary energy source and a key part of its energy strategy, so the country has been transforming its coal industry to make it cutting-edge, intelligent, and green. To pioneer this advanced industry transformation, China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd. (China Huaneng) has partnered with Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Co., Ltd. (XCMG), Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei), and State Grid Smart Internet of Vehicles Co., Ltd. on a joint innovation project to deploy the world's first fleet of 100 autonomous electric mining trucks at the Yimin mine. Through vehicle-cloud-network synergy and innovation, the Huaneng Ruichi trucks have set three new records for autonomous electric mining trucks: the world's largest payload (90 metric tons), fastest running speed (50 km/h), and lowest temperature for continuous operations (–40°C).

Mining challenges in extremely-cold environments

The Yimin mine is the second-largest open-pit coal mine in China with an annual production capacity of 35 million metric tons. However, machinery at the mine faces severe challenges like extreme temperatures as low as –48.5°C and frequent dust and fog. Before the transformation, a significant challenge was transportation, which accounted for 50% of the mine's safety incidents. Four teams of drivers took frequent shifts to ensure 24/7 operations, which was dangerous and highly inefficient. These problems made traditional mining models unsustainable.

The coal mining industry is in urgent need of transformation, and a key part of this transformation is intelligent and green mining trucks. According to the China National Coal Association, the number of autonomous mining trucks in China is expected to exceed 10,000 by 2026. With increasing efforts on carbon emissions reduction in the mining industry, over 2,000 electric mining trucks will be sold in China in 2025.

Breakthroughs of the Yimin open-pit mine

The Yimin mine is making innovative use of AI throughout its production systems. Through vehicle-cloud-network synergy, this high-altitude mine aims to achieve zero safety incidents and help accelerate the transition towards a cutting-edge, intelligent, and green coal industry.

The Yimin mine managed to achieve transformation thanks to an intelligent network covering the entire mining area. The mine partnered with China Mobile Inner Mongolia to deploy a 5G-A network for precise network coverage along the driving routes of autonomous trucks, achieving smooth vehicle-cloud synergy. This makes it the world's first open-pit mine powered by a 5G-A network that provides 500 Mbps uplink speeds and 20 ms latency to support HD video transmission and cloud-based autonomous truck scheduling. In the future, 5G-A coverage will support 24/7 operations of more than 300 autonomous mining trucks, further improving mining safety and efficiency.

Intelligent algorithms are critical to efficient network operations at the mine. Zhang Ping'an, Executive Director of Huawei and CEO of Huawei's Cloud Computing Business Unit, said, "The deployment of the fleet of 100 autonomous electric mining trucks is not only a lighthouse project that demonstrates China's innovative integration of 5G, cloud, AI, and green energy technologies, but also an exploration of how AI can be used to tackle pressing challenges in specific industry scenarios."

Huawei Cloud's Commercial Vehicle Autonomous Driving Cloud Service (CVADCS) provides customized AI algorithms for Huaneng Ruichi trucks. These trucks are 4.3 meters wide, 10.4 meters long, and 4.7 meters high, and can carry up to 43 cubic meters of earth and rocks. Thanks to Huawei's algorithms, the giant trucks can operate flexibly throughout the mining area. Furthermore, the trucks have all-weather dynamic environmental perception and planning capabilities, and are equipped with a perception system composed of multiple LiDAR, millimeter-wave radar, and camera devices. This enables 360° omnidirectional, multimodal, and integrated information perception with no blind spots.

As a result, the trucks can stably perceive distances of up to 40 meters in low-light conditions like heavy snow, sandstorms, and nighttime, and can avoid obstacles automatically. They have achieved industry-leading precision in their detection of walls, boundaries, and heights in snowy and dusty environments. They are also capable of high-precision positioning with minimal dependence on real-time kinematic positioning (RTK) in complex mining environments. This enables decimeter-level automatic parking, road smoothness detection, slow driving on steep descents, and balanced rolling.

In addition, CVADCS collects data from numerous sources and uses a crowdsourced map for automatic operational location updates within minutes, which maximizes the strengths of collaborative truck fleet operations. CVADCS plans and optimizes loading and dumping routes in advance, enabling trucks to park securely at irregular and dynamically-changing dumping sites. As the parking location of each truck is planned and determined in advance, when a truck parks, the entire fleet is notified. This significantly reduces waiting times and improves operational efficiency.

The Huaneng Ruichi is China's first autonomous mining truck without a driver's cabin, which reflects the company's prioritization of personnel safety above all else. With these trucks, many mining workers are no longer exposed to equipment hazards and harsh environments. The intrinsic safety of the trucks significantly reduces risks in extreme working conditions such as freezing temperature at high altitudes and heavy rain, snow, and dust.

In addition to efficiency and safety, the Yimin mine has integrated green requirements into its end-to-end production process. The autonomous trucks are purely electric, powered by 100% green solar energy. They can also replace batteries automatically within six minutes, achieving zero-carbon transportation. To complete the annual workload of 100 Huaneng Ruichi trucks, conventional trucks would need to use more than 15,000 metric tons of diesel, which would generate 48,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

The Yimin mine demonstrates that intelligent mining requires not just individual technological innovations, but large-scale vehicle-cloud-network synergy. The mine has used cutting-edge technologies to elevate production safety to a new level, and sets a benchmark for the digital and intelligent transformation of traditional sectors.

Moving forward, China Huaneng will continue working alongside partners like Huawei, XCMG, and State Grid Smart Internet of Vehicles Co., Ltd. to transform mine transportation equipment, and build safer, greener, and more efficient intelligent mines. Together, they will draw on the experience of the Yimin mine to help the energy sector go digital and intelligent.