Auto-mate is on a mission to make automation accessible for all miners, no matter the size or level of sophistication of their operations.

More smaller mining companies and contractors are moving to take advantage of OEM-agnostic, interoperable automation systems that can be retrofitted to heavy, mobile equipment, reducing high-cost fleet changes and minimising infrastructure installations. This makes Auto-mate's unique, mission-driven automation system, with its open architecture which integrates with existing systems and mixed fleets, most attractive.

Auto-mate's system is ideal for a number of use cases such as automated haulage or mine rehabilitation, and to operate water trucks, light vehicles or almost any other asset.

The retrofittable, scalable nature of the technology supports the progression from Level 3 (conditional automation) to Level 5 (full automation) where operations are growing or adopting a conservative approach to fleet automation. All the data generated from the automated asset belongs to the customer and can be used for process and operational improvements at their operations.

Auto-mate had planned to set up and oversee autonomous truck testing in Perth in early-2020 before COVID came along, bringing with it widespread travel restrictions and a shut-down of the borders in WA.

Work was advanced in Israel, with all components of the automation package and related operating system software simulated at the company's technical centre and then physically tested in a large aggregates quarry in Israel.

Auto-mate vice-president of product and strategy Elad Abbo said the target vehicle, a Cat 775, was kitted out with lidars, cameras, radars and onboard controls, all set up in the correct operating configuration and fully operational.

"We are doing full haulage cycles and different types of loading and dumping procedures, running on level, decline and incline roads, all conducted autonomously," he said.

"We do not just identify obstacles and perform a stop; we actually identify obstacles, analyse the real-time situation and conditions then the autonomous technology actually allows the machine to make decisions according to the circumstances."

Abbo said in some cases it will stop if not safe to continue, but in most of the cases it will find a solution and then recalculate the routing and perform a bypass.

"This is the first time we've actually taken a mining vehicle into environmental conditions that are similar to operational sites, with dust, humidity and heat," he said.

"The site work has been running for 6 months and the next stage now is to replicate this in Australia."

Auto-mate expects to have the refurbished Cat 775 ready in Perth for a seamless transfer of the bespoke automation hardware and software from Israel.

Auto-mate CEO Daniel Poller said the idea now was to ship the kit to Australia and continue the testing with more advanced scenarios while continuing testing of the software in Israel.

This will keep the system in Australia up to date with the system in Israel.

Poller said the only change that could happen was if the operator in Israel decided it wanted to keep that autonomous truck running ahead of a move to a new quarry, which would mean they would have to source a new system and bring that one over to Australia.

He said the company had started sourcing the long-lead components for that, which could lead to a small delay.

Auto-mate will bring 15 engineers and technicians from Israel to Australia to help drive the introduction of its autonomous offering for trucks and other mining machinery.

Poller said the key now was to commercialise the technology and bring it to Australia.

"All the delays of COVID and the inability to get our people into Western Australia were big issues for us, and at the same time there were five COVID waves in Israel and each wave brought development delays," he said.

"But now we have our truck running in Israel, it's ready to move over to WA and we are also keen to get other product offerings to market."

This includes a working autonomous dozer, initially designed for the military, so with little further development required.

Poller said it was time to transfer that over to the mining side.

"We've had a lot of requests for an autonomous REXX in part due to a move by industry to look more at satellite pits, with REXX uniquely positioned to work more economically on satellite pits than traditional dump trucks," he said.

REXX is a 160-tonne innovative mining haul truck developed by Bis.

"An automated REXX makes sense, and it can be turned out quickly."

At Future of Mining 2022, Poller spoke to Aspermont's Chris Cann about how the industry needs to do things differently.

He said Auto-mate sees itself as being quite different in several things, with the technology different, for a start.

"Our technology is different to any autonomous technology on the market, though some new players are coming up with similar paradigms," Poller said.

"When you look at the main autonomous systems available, they are primarily rail-based and system-based as opposed to on-the-edge based autonomy, which gives us advantages as there is less communications going back and forth to the main area and overall safety is enhanced."

He said the system can make smart decisions, like helping reduce fuel and maintenance costs by choosing the best path to drive on, rather than the path that is pre-determined.

Poller said whether the industry in the short-term can take advantage of all that comes down to whether regulations and safety standards can catch-up.

"We want to build what's good for the industry to challenge and push the boundaries of regulation to be able to change and progress the industry," he said.

"We're also working on applications where we believe things could be done differently, including some areas of drill and blast and other areas of the mine."

Poller said in the drill and blast sphere Auto-mate was working with two other players, with each party bringing what they are good at to the table to change how something has been done.

"It's not just us coming in saying we want to do stuff differently, it is three players coming in each holding a piece of the puzzle, to come up with something different," he said.

Auto-mate stands out in the industry because it wants to collaborate with others.

Poller said whenever he sees competitors with announcements, he is actually happy for them, as anything that moves the industry ahead and away from the paradigm of the OEM-only was a good thing.

"We can be collaborators and competitors at the same time," he said.