The full stack AHS space in mining is becoming more crowded, as a series of new entrants have appeared – some growing outside home markets in China and others built out of autonomous driving tech companies in Silicon Valley. The UK’s ABD Solutions, a subsidiary of LSE-listed AB Dynamics says it has a unique offering that is designed to reduce the barriers to autonomy adoption. The parent company’s core business is automotive development, testing, and validation, with a significant focus on supplying robotic driving systems to many of the world’s leading vehicle manufacturers.
Automotive OEMs use ABD Solutions’ driving robots to perform repeatable, precision vehicle tests that would be difficult or impossible to achieve consistently with human drivers. The robots are retrofittable actuator systems that physically control a vehicle’s steering wheel, pedals, gearshift, and ancillary vehicle controls in the same way a human driver would, bypassing the need for complex internal CAN-bus integration or factory software modifications.
Automotive applications range from developing and testing driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles to durability assessments, tyre evaluation, and regulatory compliance, where the same manoeuvre must be executed consistently many times.
Group Business Development Director at AB Dynamics Ben Russell
Group Business Development Director at AB Dynamics Ben Russell told IM: “As demand for automation expanded beyond the proving ground, we recognised an opportunity to apply this proven technology to real-world operational environments. That led to the formation of ABD Solutions, which adapts the technology for sectors such as mining, defence, construction, and logistics.”
The company realised that there was a huge potential market for this as a key tool in an autonomy ecosystem. Russell: “It doesn’t look that high tech. But at the end of the day, you’re getting the same performance, you’re getting the same outcome, but at a fraction of the cost, and the ability to install this onto quite literally any vehicle with a steering wheel and pedals, no matter how old it is, and the ability to do that within hours.”
Hardware is installed on the vehicle – actuators, mounting brackets, and a control cabinet. The system is calibrated so that the robot understands how much to turn the wheel or press the pedal to achieve a given response. The autonomy stack connects via a relatively small set of commands that tell the robot what speed to target and which path to follow.
Once that is done, the first autonomous missions can often be run in a controlled part of the site within hours of power-up on familiar platforms. Mines have a truck running a basic route, a water cart following a fixed circuit or a shuttle between dump and stockpile happening driverlessly long before a traditional integration project would typically reach the same point. That speed encourages experimentation. Operators can try autonomy on a single route, vehicle or task, gather data, learn what works and then decide where to expand.
Above the vehicle control supplied by ABD Solutions sit the perception systems – LiDAR, radar, cameras, GNSS/IMU – that sense the world, and the autonomy software that plans paths, avoids obstacles and controls speed. ABD Solutions’ model centres on partnering with autonomy providers and OEMs for these elements. For autonomy providers, robotics offer a vehicle-agnostic actuation solution that accelerates deployment and reduces development risk. For OEMs, the technology provides a practical route to extending autonomous capabilities across a wider range of vehicle types, enabling them to incorporate third-party and legacy platforms into their autonomous ecosystems.
ABD Solutions states: “When you combine retrofit driving robots, open or modular autonomy software and interoperability standards like ISO 23725, a different picture of mining autonomy emerges. A brownfield site might start by automating just one high-risk haul or a repetitive water cart route using the trucks it already owns. A mid-tier operator with a mixed fleet can run autonomy across different OEMs without negotiating separate integrations for each brand. A contractor can equip part of its fleet with robots and offer autonomy-ready services to multiple clients, plugging into whichever FMS or autonomy platform those sites prefer. In this model, autonomy is no longer a single, monolithic decision tied to one vendor, one fleet or one mega-project. It becomes a flexible toolkit that mines can apply where it makes the most sense.”
ABD Solutions argues that there is a vast opportunity for this in ancillary vehicles that have been bypassed in the focus on primary haul trucks with AHS. That includes often older and smaller class mechanical drive trucks that are used for waste haulage and infrastructure work, plus water trucks, support vehicles and contractor machines.
Russell: “With our system, these machines are perfectly capable of being automated, but often due to the model or age don’t have a CAN-bus interface system, and pretty much 99.9% of our competitors would have to automate through that system.”
He adds: “We can bring autonomy benefits to orphan and legacy fleets. The ‘CAN-bus or nothing’ mindset quietly excludes a huge proportion of the world’s mining equipment from autonomy conversations. Autonomy today is seen as something to consider for the next flagship project or only as part of a full fleet renewal, rather than a tool that can be applied to the assets already on site.”
ABD Solutions is already seeing traction in the port industry – as it allows port operators to automate a large range of mobile equipment and brands which are more diverse even than in mining. Plus there is a large market in defence as well.
Russell: “Because it’s a mechanical interface, there’s minimal changes to the cab, there’s no injection of code into the CAN-bus system. If you think about a mining truck, when you hit the brakes, ABS automatically applies, or traction control applies when accelerating. With driving robots those safety systems still operate as they would with a human driver.”
Volvo ADT running autonomously at LEAG minesite using technology from ABD Solutions and SOAFEE
ABD Solutions argues that there is actually a major potential market with the big mining truck OEMs themselves in addition to the mining companies. When one of the majors sells an AHS, the customer will often ask what to do with the 20-25% of fleet not capable of being automated efficiently or cost effectively with that system. ABD Solutions can offer a complementary solution – as an option that the big mining truck and AHS players can offer.
Russell: “We are talking with a very large copper customer who have 75% of their trucks from one OEM that runs on their AHS system, but then there’s 25% of the fleet from the other major truck OEM which the main AHS supplier is not willing to automate. Previously, to achieve an autonomous mine the only option was to sell them off and buy new vehicles. Now we can provide that last mile with zero system and IP complexity because it’s a mechanical interface.” The ABD Solutions system is also highly portable – it can be installed and uninstalled quickly which means it can easily be transferred between pits or different contractor fleets.
The system has been installed already at a large decommissioned coal mine in Germany where operator LEAG (Lausitz Energie Bergbau AG) is now carrying out major earthworks as part of landscaping so that the area can be turned into a lake and recreational area. This work going to last through almost 2040. There are over 50 trucks on site, mainly ADTs, and this is set to double. In this region, Lusatia, it is very hard to find people to drive them, plus the trucks are of varied ages and brands. ABD Solutions has partnered with SOAFEE, a member of the AutoWare Foundation which is now working with LEAG. They have brought their LiDAR, radar and camera vision, ABD Solutions brought the vehicle control. This type of project shows what could be possible in mining.
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