Komatsu Ltd. (hereafter “Komatsu”) (President and CEO: Hiroyuki Ogawa) and Toyota Motor Corporation (hereafter “Toyota”) (Operating Officer, President: Koji Sato) are pleased to announce the launch of a joint project to develop an Autonomous Light Vehicle (hereafter “ALV”) that will run on Komatsu’s Autonomous Haulage System (hereafter “AHS”). To realize further safety and productivity improvements in mines by running autonomous haul trucks and automated ALV controlled by AHS, Komatsu and Toyota are launching an effort to jointly develop new technologies. Both companies are currently testing a concept ALV at their proving grounds, and plan to have a proof of concept at a customer site by around January 2024.
Minerals and energy resources are essential in our lives and industries. Autonomy offers the opportunity to remove people from harm’s way and enhance safety. It can allow our mining customers the ability to continue the hard work of providing critical minerals despite the ongoing challenge of labor shortages in the mining industry. It can also provide additional safety measures to mine sites on which multiple pieces of equipment are operated, in an effort to reduce accidents due to human error.