Computerized truck guidance nearly completed.Computerized computerized adapted for analysis, storage and retrieval on a computer. computerized axial tomography see computed tomography. truck guidance nearly complete Two North Bay firms have almost completed development of a computer-guidance system for underground mining trucks. "We're we're Contraction of we are. we're we are getting fairly close to having it for sale," said Glenn Brophey, president of Mintronics Systems Corp. It is hoped that the system, known as Opti-Trak, will be ready to go underground by August. Opti-Trak will guide underground mining vehicles. It is designed to allow a driverless truck to travel under its own guidance from a stope stope n. An excavation in the form of steps made by the mining of ore from steeply inclined or vertical veins. tr.v. stoped, stop·ing, stopes To remove (ore) from or mine by means of a stope. , where it would be loaded by an operator, to an ore pass. It would dump at the ore pass under computer control and return to the loading site An area containing a number of loading points. . The truck would guide itself using lasers installed on the vehicle and reference markers mounted in the drift drift, deposit of mixed clay, gravel, sand, and boulders transported and laid down by glaciers. Stratified, or glaciofluvial, drift is carried by waters flowing from the melting ice of a glacier. . A human has to be involved only at the beginning of each 15-to-20-minute cycle. Once the truck is started, it goes where it is directed and returns completely on its own. Mintronics Systems and its partner, Donson Engineering Ltd., have been working on the project for three years. Brophey noted that Inco Limited is working on a similar system. However, Inco's system would be more complex, requiring the design of a new truck. "We're working with existing vehicles," noted Brophey. The Opti-Trak technology could be added to existing diesel-driven, free-steer vehicles. It will take about two weeks to install the unit on each truck, along with placing the reference markers in the drift. Trials of a prototype have been held over 100,000 feet of test track in a rock pit in North Bay. "There's no length restrictions on it at all," said Brophey, explaining that, in a longer drift, more reference markers would be used. He said the system is working well in simulation on the surface. "We've we've Contraction of we have. we've have got enough confidence to put the components on a 13-ton truck." Brophey doesn't know which will be the first mine to use the system, but several are interested. Most likely, the first actual underground use will be somewhere in Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is the part of the province of Ontario which lies north of Lake Huron (including Georgian Bay), the French River and Lake Nipissing. Northern Ontario has a land area of 802,000 km² (310,000 mi²) and constitutes 87% of the land area of Ontario, although it . No price tag has yet been set for each unit. |
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