PJSC KAMAZ and GC Tsifra have entered into a cooperation agreement under which they plan to supplement robotic mining trucks with a domestic autonomous vehicle dispatching system, which will be the last stage of work before the first Russian autonomous mining trucks from KAMAZ are launched at mining sites.
The agreement was signed at the CYPR-2022 conference in Nizhny Novgorod. The document was signed by Eldar Shavaliev, Director for Digital Transformation of KAMAZ, and Igor Bogachev, General Director of GC Tsifra.
The parties agreed to exchange experience in order to build up competencies both in terms of operating autonomous vehicles and in terms of production management. In addition, KAMAZ and Tsifra will share practices for effective implementation of tasks and development strategies for the mining industry, and hold joint seminars and conferences to gain quality expertise when implementing projects.
The companies intend to promote unmanned technologies in the domestic market, as well as to enter the markets of BRICS and CIS countries, which have already shown interest in Russian mining drones. Several companies in the coal industry have already expressed their willingness to become a platform for testing and operating heavy-duty dump trucks.
"We have a competitive product being formed, the demand for which will only grow. We intend to further develop this promising direction and will expand the offer of unmanned vehicles to other industries," commented Sergey Kogogin, General Director of KAMAZ.
"By the end of the year, we will have an adapted and tested mining control system for KAMAZ trucks that enables us to effectively manage the fleet of autonomous vehicles at the company. After its integration, KAMAZ trucks will be deployed in the field of potential customers, where we will "test" the reliability and efficiency of our technology," said Igor Bogachev, General Director of GC Tsifra.