Scheduling of Autonomous Mining Trucks: Allocation Model Based Tabu Search Algorithm Development

Transport activities in open-pit mines contribute to a large portion of total energy consumption. Most truck scheduling studies still take a traditional approach to autonomous mining trucks, which does not fully exploit the strengths of the autonomous trucks that can perform more accurate speed control compared to conventional manned trucks. In this paper, a mixed-integer programming model is developed for joint optimization of autonomous truck trips and speed to reduce fuel consumption. To solve the integrated scheduling model, a new tabu search algorithm is proposed, which consists of two stages, where an allocation model is formulated in the upper stage to identify the optimal truck flow, and in the lower stage a tabu search algorithm is developed initialized with the guidance of optimal truck flow. A coal mine in Inner Mongolia is used for example to analyze and verify the effectiveness of the proposed model and solution techniques.