Volvo Enhances Prototype Self-Driving Quarry Truck

Volvo Group’s Construction Equipment unit demonstrated the second-generation of its automated load carrier concept truck earlier this month at the ConExpo-Con/AGG conference in Las Vegas.

The all-electric HX2 model updates last year’s HX1 proof-of-concept truck with the truckmaker’s latest battery, electric motor, power electronics and software technology. The H2X also adds a vision system that Volvo says can detect nearby people and other obstacles.

The concept loader is part of the electric site research project Volvo launched in 2015 with construction company Skanska Sweden, the Swedish Energy Agency and researchers at two Swedish universities (Linkoping and Malardalen) who are working to improve battery aging energy management performance. Volvo is coordinating and developing the technology for the $23 million project, which aims to reduce carbon emissions and lower ownership costs by as much as 25% for the quarry industry.

The research program features electrified and automated equipment in a variety of quarry operations, from excavation to primary crushing and transport to secondary crushing. In addition to a small fleet of HX2 loaders, Volvo is supplying a hybrid-electric wheel loader and a grid-connected excavator.

The hybrid LX1 wheel loader can provide as much as 50% better fuel efficiency, while significantly reducing emissions and noise pollution compared with traditionally powered systems, according to Volvo. The series hybrid architecture teams electric drive motors, electric-driven hydraulics and an energy storage system with a downsized diesel engine and an updated lift unit and overall system architecture. Volvo claims the prototype device can do the work of a wheel loader that’s one size larger.

Skanska Sweden will test the electric site concept at a quarry in western Sweden for three months at the end of 2018. There are no immediate plans to commercialize any of the technologies being developed in the program.