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389 Batchelor PDF
389 Batchelor PDF
Proceedings of the Twentieth International Symposium on the Application of Computers and Mathematics in
the Mineral Industries. Volume 1: Mining. Johannesburg, SAIMM, 1987. pp. 389-401.
Introduction
rock is also mined by Palabora on shovels and the haul truck fleet to
behalf of the Phosphate Develop- seventy-nine 154 ton Unit Rig MK36
ment Corporation. trucks and four 154 ton Euclid R170
trucks, making a total of eighty-
Background to the mining operation three haul units.
The first phase of the mining The pit is mined in 15,2 m high
<=-----t------ro----+200 m
=~~~--f"'__------M. S. L.
---+-'----+----------2.5 Om
8CALE:metres
FIGURE 1. East-west cross-section through the Palabora Pit, showing the current and final pit walls. The
World Trade Center buildings are superimposed to convey an impression of the depth
reduced fuel costs and greater haul July 1972, with operation on a con-
truck productivity through increased tinuous basis being achieved in the
3
speed. early part of 1973. The haul truck
All of the ore is currently hauled fl eet at that time consisted of
to surface and delivered to one of nineteen 90 ton Unit Rig M100s and
three 54" Allis Chalmer gyratory thirty 65 ton KW Darts. The basic
cone crushers. All other material concept of the system was to be able
is delivered to one of twelve dumps to detect a truck as it entered the
according to the material classi- pit and assign it to a shovel by
fication and ownership. means of a shovel priority rating
patching was based on manual batch the system, studies indicated that
allocation, a system which suffered the resultant increase in producti-
certain inherent inefficiencies. The vity varied from between 5% to 8 9-o •
Should such a condition arise then crushing a load. The latter informa-
when the truck arrives at a shovel, Mine engineering personnel are res-
when it is being loaded, when a dump ponsible for the upkeep of the
assignment is required, to confirm DISPATCH system, particularly with
arrival at the dump and to request respect to the primary pit confi-
an assignment back to a shovel. guration data such as haul routes,
Other input required is that composite data, production equipment
relating to the state of the haul information, etc. As with computer
truck, such as downs or delays operating systems, DISPATCH has many
being experienced, the quantity of configurable system parameters which
Dispatch hardware
A detailed description of the
system hardware is beyond the scope
of this paper. However, for further
7
reference Baker, Coburn & White
have described fully the operation
of the system and the functionality
of the associated hardware. FIGURE 3. A haul truck appIOaching a location beacon
Communications hardware
Communication is achieved with the
use of a two channel UHF FM system.
Two repeaters, both on a 100% duty
cycle, are located at the lookout
close to the edge of the pit in
order to ensure good radio cover-
FIGURE 4. An operator interface panel for a haul truck
age.
necessary, before the truck arrives
Communication between the VAX and
at its final destination.
the field equipment is achieved by
Field control units means of an interface panel support-
Field control units are mounted in ing a communications protocol devel-
all trucks, shovels and cru.shers to oped specifically for efficient er-
enable equipment operators to com- ror-free communication on a radio
municate wi th DISPATCH and vice channel.
versa. The field control units
Central computer hardware
consist of a vehicle interface pa-
The central computer (see Figure 5)
nel, an operator interface panel, a
is a Digital Equipment Corporation
radio and a power supply. The vehi-
VAX-11/7BO with B ME of internal
cle interface panel, often referred
memory, floating point processor,
to as the 'black box' is of rug-
16 ports, three RAB1 456 ME hard
ged construction and contains
disc units and a TUBO Magnetic tape
three cards to cater for communi ca-
drive. The system was originally
tions, beacon receiving and vital
delivered with 4 ME of internal
signs monitoring.
memory, but various operating system
The operator interface panel (see
and application program upgrades
Figure 4) contains a microprocessor
necessitated a further 4 ME of
to control the 32 character display
memory and the sharing of swap and
Dispatch software
All of the DISPATCH software in-
stalled on the VAX is written in 'C'
for maximum system efficiency, but
the majority of the software
installed in the field hardware is
written in Pascal and Assembler.
When the system was first instal-
FIGURE 5. Central computer room, showing system console, led much of the software distributed
VAX-ll/780, disc drives and communication
cabinet between the various mine sites