Haul Truck Dispatch Optimization via Arc Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current automated dispatch systems for haul trucks in mining operations, while more efficient than manual dispatch, often fail to reliably achieve production goals due to sub-optimal assignment of return arcs, leading to resource waste and reduced productivity, especially in large-scale mining sites.
Innovation Solution
A resource allocation optimization system that includes a production planner to compute and monitor material transfer rates, reallocating resources based on actual versus estimated rates, and a dispatcher to dynamically adjust haul truck routes and assignments to optimize production arcs and return arcs, ensuring alignment with production goals.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If fully automatic dispatch is implemented to optimize production without continuous human intervention, then productivity and equipment utilization are improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The dispatch system is segmented into multiple independent modules: production planner circuitry that generates optimized schedules, real-time dispatcher circuitry that executes dispatch decisions, and monitor circuitry that tracks actual performance. Each module performs a specific function, allowing the complex overall system to be managed through modular components that can be developed, tested, and maintained independently.
Solution Approach 2:
The production planner circuitry performs preliminary optimization by computing optimal production schedules and arc assignments before execution. The system pre-calculates the most efficient production arcs and return arcs for each haul truck based on production goals and current site conditions, so that the real-time dispatcher only needs to execute pre-determined optimal decisions rather than solving complex optimization problems in real-time.
2Productivity
If return arcs are not optimized in production plans, then system complexity is reduced, but resource waste increases and productivity decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The production planner circuitry pre-computes optimized return arcs alongside production arcs. Before haul trucks begin their operations, the system determines the optimal sequence of production arcs and return arcs for each truck, ensuring that even the empty return trips are efficiently planned rather than improvised, thereby eliminating wasted movement and time.
Solution Approach 2:
The system ensures continuous productive utilization of haul trucks by optimizing both production arcs (when trucks are loaded and transporting material) and return arcs (when trucks are empty). By carefully planning return arcs to minimize idle travel time and position trucks strategically for upcoming loading operations, the system maintains continuous useful action rather than allowing trucks to spend excessive time in non-productive return trips.
3Reliability
If production plans include only loaded production arcs without return arc optimization, then planning simplicity is maintained, but actual production goals are not reliably achieved
Solution Approach 1:
The production plan is segmented into two distinct but coordinated components: production arcs (loaded trips from loading tools to dump sites) and return arcs (empty trips from dump sites back to loading tools). The production planner circuitry independently optimizes each segment while ensuring their coordination, allowing the system to achieve reliable production goals through structured decomposition rather than monolithic complex planning.
Solution Approach 2:
The monitor circuitry continuously compares actual haul truck performance against the optimized production and return arc schedules. When deviations are detected (such as trucks running slower than expected or taking longer than planned return trips), the system uses this feedback to adjust future production plans and arc assignments, ensuring that production goals are reliably achieved despite variations in actual operating conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for dispatching haul trucks includes a production planner configured to operate based on a production plan. The production planner computationally defines production arcs for transferring material from loading tools to dump sites, computationally develops one or more possible return arcs for each production arc, compiles a set of possible return arcs, and computationally selects a sub-set of the possible return arcs to command a real time dispatcher.