Energy savings by wireless control of speed, scheduling and travel times for hauling operation

A Quarry and Aggregate production site consist of sequential production processes and activities to process and produce the output products. Compared to a fixed manufacturing plant, the quarry processes involve mobile machines such as wheel loaders, trucks and articulated haulers and a highly dynamic road infrastructure. Today, the mobile machines are generally not synchronized or controlled towards the overall throughput of the site in real time. This indicates a general improvement potential in increased productivity at quarry sites, but also unsolved challenges for the same reason. Assuming a wireless control system that controls speed and throughput of the different processes and activities, there would be a fuel reduction potential in controlling the mobile machines. This optimization requires models of machine fuel consumption for different applications, velocities and travel times. The main contribution of this paper is the presentation of fuel measurements based on different speeds, site application characteristics and travel times for hauling operation. The fuel measures reveal important aspects regarding how different velocities impact fuel consumption. The results of fuel measurements show a potential in fuel savings of up to 42% and a typical improvement of 20–30% depending on machine speeds, travel times, application and site characteristics. Based on this, some of the applications and challenges in wirelessly controlling machines are discussed.