Researchers from UQ's School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering pioneered world-first autonomous mining equipment, including a fully autonomous excavator and autonomous bulldozers for production mining, helping improve safety, productivity and efficiency across the global mining industry.
What's the problem?
Mining relies on some of the world's largest and most complex machines, operating in environments that can be remote, hazardous and constantly changing. Improving productivity while protecting workers is a major challenge for mining companies around the world.
Automating heavy equipment is particularly difficult because machines must accurately sense their surroundings, respond to changing conditions and carry out complex tasks safely and reliably over long periods of operation.
What's UQ's innovation?
For 25 years, Professor Ross McAree has led UQ's Smart Machines group have been working with mining equipment manufactures and global mining companies to develop AI-enabled automation technologies for heavy mining equipment. The research combines perception (sensing and interpreting the machine's surroundings), state and terrain estimation, and autonomous planning and control, so that mining machinery can carry out complex physical tasks with minimal human intervention.
Working with P&H Mining Equipment (now Komatsu), the group developed the world's first fully autonomous mining excavator and demonstrated it at a Queensland mine. The excavator was enabled to perform complex digging and loading operations autonomously.
The team has also collaborated with Caterpillar Inc. to develop and trial the world's first autonomous bulldozer capable of production dozing using the pivot-push method, a task previously considered too complex to automate.
These innovations moved beyond laboratory research into commercial mining environments.
What's the impact?
The technologies developed through this research have been commercialised and adopted within the mining sector, contributing to safer and more productive operations around the world. By automating demanding tasks, the systems help reduce the need for operators to work in high-risk environments.
The mining automation technologies developed through this research have been adopted in production mining operations.
The work shows how university research can be carried through to technology used in production mining operations.
Did you know?
Professor Ross McAree's Smart Machines group contributed to the development of both the world's first fully autonomous mining excavator and the world's first autonomous production-grade bulldozer capable of pivot-push mining. They have extended these technologies to autonomous bulldozers operation on stockpiles and mined land rehabilitation.
Led by
- Professor Ross McAree
School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering
| AI Research Strength | Data-Centric AI Scalable & Sustainable AI |
|---|---|
| Industry Portfolio | Energy and resources |
| Key Partners | Komatsu (formerly Joy Global Surface Mining) · Caterpillar Inc. |
| Key Publications | ACARP C16031 Final Report: Shovel Load Assist Project (2017). John Dudley and Ross McAree. https://www.acarp.com.au/abstracts.aspx?repId=C16031 ACARP C24037 Final report, "Automated Bulk Dozer Push, Reducing the Cost of Overburden Removal (2020)," Ross McAree, Richard Hensel and Zane Smith https://www.acarp.com.au/abstracts.aspx?repId=C24037 |
Published 15 September 2026