Australian-British concern Rio Tinto is the third largest transnational mining and metallurgical company operating in many countries around the world. To continue to maintain high performance and to keep pace with the times, the company’s specialists are constantly testing new technologies and actively implement them in production. One of the innovations was an unmanned cargo train that was tested in the Australian region of Pilbara.
The AutoHaul project, which was created several unmanned freight trains, has been repeatedly postponed because of problems with the software of the autopilot and other unforeseen circumstances, but now developers are going to run unmanned trains in 2018. While the trains are on autopilot, went in, accompanied by drivers, supervisors, themselves compositions were controlled remotely and were thus about one hundred kilometers. Independently, they managed to drive only about a kilometer, but this achievement showed that the autopilot is able to work stably and can cope with the task.
The train is able to deliver the goods, promise to save the company a lot of money, because if there is no people, you do not need to stop to rest and dine, so to arrive at the destination an unmanned train will make it much faster. If all goes well, Rio Tinto plans to launch the world’s first unmanned cargo trains.
Began testing the world’s first unmanned freight train
Vyacheslav Larionov