MINSK, 25 September (BelTA) – The Belarusian automobile engineering company BelAZ will deliver the first few unmanned dump trucks to Russia by the end of 2018, BelTA learned from BelAZ Director General Piotr Parkhomchik on 25 September.
The BelAZ CEO said: “We now have an order for the first two vehicles [unmanned dump trucks] with the carrying capacity of 136 tonnes, which will be delivered to the Russian coal mining company SUEK in October-November. The delivery of another five vehicles is being discussed. They are supposed to be delivered in H1 2019. These vehicles will be tested in different climatic conditions. After one year of trial runs we are going to discuss the batch production of unmanned dump trucks.”
Apart from that, BelAZ intends to win a tender for equipping ten haul trucks, which have been shipped to Morocco, with an unmanned control system.
An unmanned haul truck costs $200,000-250,000 more than the conventional truck. According to Piotr Parkhomchik, the money is recouped within roughly half a year. “In some regions the vehicles have to work in very difficult conditions, in remote areas. There are some raw materials, which are harmful to human health,” noted the BelAZ director general. The company has come up with several solutions for driving unmanned trucks, including a GPS navigation one.
The public joint-stock company (OAO) BelAZ designs and manufactures mining vehicles and special-purpose vehicles using innovative technologies. Over the course of 70 years the company has made over 500 various modifications of haul trucks and utility vehicles, has assembled some 146,000 vehicles, with the products shipped to 78 countries.
