Forget cities. Volvo is testing autonomous trucks ... in a mine?
If you were impressed when carmakers started testing self-driving vehicles on freeways, wait until you get a load of what Volvo has up its sleeves.
Volvo Trucks announced Thursday that starting this fall and over the next year and a half it will be testing self-driving versions of its FMX truck inside the underground Boliden mine in Kristineberg, Sweden.
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Volvo isn't going subterranean with its trucks simply for sport. Rather, it's keen to figure out how its autonomous technology can be applied to limited and geographically extreme areas. And I'd say it doesn't get a lot more limited or extreme than an underground mine.
Just how extreme is this mine? Well, it's 4,330 feet (1,320 meters) underground for starters. It seems the FXMs are up to the challenge, though. They're fitted with radar- and laser-based sensors that will initially map the mines.
Once that's done, the trucks will continue to scan on each successive run of the mine, which will further improve its understanding of the route. Should one of the trucks encounter an obstacle with one of its six onboard safety sensors that it can't navigate around, it won't be stuck idling more than eight-tenths of a mile beneath the earth's surface. Cleverly, after it sends a safety alert, the truck can be remotely operated by a human in the mine's transport management center.
Image: Volvo Trucks
Of course, the information Volvo gathers won't simply be utilized by mine-going machines. The data the self-driving trucks glean can be applied to improve road-going consumer cars. After all, Volvo aims to have Level 4, fully autonomous cars on the road by 2020. It's likely it can use what it learns in the mine to help keep your family safe above ground.
