BELAZ, the world's largest manufacturer of mining dump trucks and transport equipment for the mining and construction industry, has equipped its advanced diesel trolley hauler with a machine positioning system under the contact network.
The positioning system will allow the driver not to lose time and distance on the way under the trolleys, moving using a diesel engine and increase traffic safety.
Subsequently, the positioning system will make it possible to implement unmanned driving by a trolley car under a contact network.
The positioning system on the BELAZ diesel trolley car will be implemented in several stages:
- Determining the position of the trolley car in a coordinate system tied to the contact network and notifying the driver with a special signal on the display panel in case of deviation from the trajectory.
- Automatic raising and lowering of the trolley at optimal points along the way.
- Automatic control of the movement of a trolley car under the contact network. When approaching the contact network, the pantographs rise, and the dump truck continues to move in automatic mode. In case of deviation from the trajectory, the system will try to automatically return the trolley car to the optimal path, and in case of excessive deviation, it will brake the dump truck.
For the first time, a diesel trolley car was assembled at BELAZ back in Soviet times, in 1964. Two years later, a novelty - a 65-ton BELAZ-E524 - was delivered to the Krasnogorsky coal mine in Kuzbass. Two decades later, BELAZ made the next attempt to put trolley cars into mass production. In 1987, two BELAZ-75195 diesel trolley trucks with a carrying capacity of 110 tons rolled off the assembly line. They were tested by the miners of the Kurzhunkul iron ore mine, located in Kazakhstan. The tests were successful, but the collapse of the USSR prevented the implementation of ambitious plans for the production of technology of the future.
