5G-A Supports 100 Autonomous Mining Trucks: Cloud Commands from 6 Kilometers Away with Millisecond Response(Oct 29)

5G-A Supports 100 Autonomous Mining Trucks: Cloud Commands from 6 Kilometers Away with Millisecond Response

Source: China News Service / CCTV News

At the Huaneng Yimin open-pit mine in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, nearly 100 autonomous electric mining trucks operate 24 hours a day in coordinated fleets. The mine produces 35 million tons of raw coal annually, with winter temperatures plunging to minus 40 degrees Celsius, yet the driverless trucks maintain efficient operations despite snow, fog, and extreme cold.

Each truck stands 5.2 meters tall, weighs 45 tons empty, and carries 90 tons of payload. Despite having no cab, the trucks have eyes: button-sized visual cameras capture the surrounding environment, complemented by five LiDAR units and four millimeter-wave radar units that work in low-light conditions. This sensor suite continuously perceives environmental changes and uploads data in real time to cloud servers 6 kilometers away, where computing systems issue fleet scheduling, route planning, and task assignment instructions.

The backbone of this system is a 5G-Advanced communication network. Each truck carries an industrial-grade 5G router, and the mine has deployed 12 mobile 5G base stations across mining areas, dumping sites, roads, and battery swap stations. In September, the Yimin mine completed the nation's first 5G-A gigabit uplink verification for an open-pit mining scenario. 5G-Advanced, essentially an enhanced version of 5G, delivers faster speeds, lower latency, and greater stability, achieving millisecond-level transmission between vehicles and the cloud.

The trucks also feature automated battery swapping. When a truck runs low, it autonomously navigates to a swap station where robotic arms replace the battery in six minutes, returning the vehicle to service. The electricity powering these operations comes from photovoltaic panels installed on ecologically restored dumping sites, with approximately two-thirds of generated power supporting mine operations.

Since deployment, the first batch of 100 trucks has maintained high attendance rates. The broader industry is accelerating: as of June 2026, domestic autonomous mining truck systems have shipped nearly 8,500 units, with about 6,000 operating online, a hundredfold increase over six years. Industry projections suggest total domestic shipments could exceed 10,000 units in 2026. Leading companies are now running projects with hundreds or even thousands of trucks in regular operation, and overseas orders are surging, with autonomous mining trucks already deployed in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

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