ESCAPE - Efficient Safety for Complex Autonomous Production Environments

Purpose and goal:

The ESCAPE pre-study has investigated the feasibility of a novel approach to safety assurance. The key innovations of this approach are (1) dynamic geofencing, by which vehicles are equipped with virtual safety zones, and (2) simulation-based safety assurance to cope with complex system-of-systems mining environments. ESCAPE has resulted in an application for a full project, as well as reports on state-of-the-art, state-of-practice, and use-cases at Boliden.

Expected results and effects:

In addition to the above-mentioned funding application and the three reports, the project has resulted in a video that introduces ESCAPE. The project objectives have been fulfilled, and it is our ambition to be able to further develop and evaluate the studied technical solutions in the follow-up project.

Approach and implementation:

The project has mainly been focused on concept studies and discussions related to the proposed approach and its applicability in mining contexts, which resulted in the joint conclusion that there is potential for adoption at Boliden, given that the approach can be further developed, evaluated, and adopted to concrete mining scenarios. This is the reason why we decided to go ahead with a follow-up project funding proposal.