Building on collaboration
This is not the first time Telia has teamed up with Volvo CE and Ericsson. The recent Pilot for Industrial Mobile communication in Mining (PIMM) project brought together a number of companies including ABB, Atlas Copco, Boliden, Ericsson, InfoVista, RISE, Telia, Volvo CE and Wolfit to develop 5G mobile communication for mine sites.
Over a period of two years, PIMM ran a number of tests at Boliden’s Kankberg underground mine in Sweden. During the project, Volvo CE successfully developed and trialled a remote-controlled wheel loader, which could be operated from an office on the surface, 400m above the machine.
“Volvo CE’s mission statement for the project was to prove that the technology we’re developing internally is applicable in a customer environment,” said Volvo’s advanced engineering programme leader Erik Uhlin. “We wanted to highlight that industrial applications in mobile networks aren’t just something out of science fiction – they’re real. Testing was carried out while production was taking place and that was demanding – but it meant that we were working with real problems, in a real environment. The project was a great success. The collaboration between all the partners resulted in us showcasing that a future underground mine could not only be more efficient, but also safer.”
The 5G Partnership Program will allow the companies to build on the successes of this collaboration. For Volvo CE this will include “pushing the boundaries for autonomous machines and developing site solutions that increase safety, productivity and uptime,” according to a statement.
The programme will use Telia’s test site in Eskilstuna, Sweden, over a two-year period. The successful application of 5G technologies in mine sites would bring improvements in safety and productivity. For example, following rock blasting, companies would no longer have to wait several hours to allow the space to ventilate before an operator entered. Instead, it could simply send in autonomous vehicles and machines, controlled from a safe location by operators using secure, real-time connections.
"The benefits in terms of speed that 5G brings is a big step forward for us,” says Volvo CE's senior vice president of technology, Patrik Lundblad. “Within our industry, there is a great potential for processing mobile data and learning how our machines can communicate and interact.”