PLANNING SYSTEM FOR AUTONOMOUS OPERATION

• US 20120046983A1
• Filed: 04/30/2010
• Published: 02/23/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/01/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Technological Resources Pty. Ltd. (Rio Tinto Limited)
• Original Assignee: University of Sydney
• Inventors: Nettleton, Eric, Hennessy, Ross, Durrant-Whyte, Hugh, Göktogan, Ali Haydar
• Granted Patent: US 9,805,316 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.12
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/45004 Mining
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations

Abstract

A planning system (201) for scheduling the operation of autonomous entities within a defined geographical region. The planning system operates at a region plan level (301) for strategic planning across the geographical region, at an operation plan level (302) for operations to be performed by autonomous entities in localised zones having operation-defined geographical boundaries, and at a task plan level (303) in which processing is undertaken in respect of specific tasks to be performed by the autonomous entities, in undertaking the operations.

Claims

1. A planning system for scheduling the operation of autonomous entities within a defined geographical region, the planning system operating at three hierarchical levels:

a) a region plan level in which processing is undertaken in respect of planning operations at a strategic level across the geographical region,

b) an operation plan level in which processing is undertaken in respect of entity-related operations to be performed by autonomous entities in selected localised zones of the geographical region having operation-defined geographical boundaries, and

c) a task plan level in which processing is undertaken in respect of specific tasks to be performed by said autonomous entities, in undertaking the operations

wherein the operation of the planning system comprises generating control information defining activities at the region plan level, the operation plan level and the task plan level and making the control information available to the autonomous entities for implementation.

2. The planning system as claimed in claim 1 comprising a user interface at which an operator of the planning system defines said localised zones.

3. The planning system as claimed in claim 1 that automatically creates a said localised zone dependent on the data defining activities at the region plan level.

4. The planning system as claimed in claim 1 that automatically creates a said localised zone dependent on the data defining activities at the operation plan level.

5. The planning system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the data defining activities at the region plan level comprises production targets for the region.

6. The planning system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the data defining activities at the operation plan level comprises activities of entities that collectively achieve the production targets.

7. The planning system as claimed in claim 6, wherein the data defining activities at the operation plan level comprises allocation of entities to said localised zones and allocation of production activities to the allocated entities.

8. The planning system as claimed in claim 7, wherein the data defining activities at the task plan level comprises movements or processes required by the allocated entities to complete a said production activity.

9. The planning system as claimed in claim 1, that manages planning instances implemented in software, the planning instances comprising a planning instance for each said entity-related operation and a planning instance for each said specific task, wherein the planning system creates and deletes active planning instances to achieve the activities at the region plan level.

10. The planning system as claimed in claim 9, comprising a communication interface with the autonomous entities for receiving status information comprising the state of completion of at least one of the entity-related operations and the specific tasks, wherein the creation and deletion of planning instances is dependant on the status information.

11. The planning system as claimed in claim 10, wherein managing planning instances comprises instructions in a planning instance for said region plan level for creating planning instances at the operation plan level and instructions in each planning instance at the operation plan level for creating a planning instance at the task plan level.

12. The planning system as claimed in claim 1 incorporated as a mine planning system in a mine automation system and linked to a mine control system and a mine picture compilation system.

13. The planning system as claimed in claim 12 and arranged to schedule variation of the geographical disposition of at least one of the boundaries of the localised zones.

14. The planning system as claimed in claim 9 comprising an interface to receive information describing the characteristics of the region and comprising a heuristic to automatically create one or more said entity-related operations in response to receipt of particular information through the interface to receive information describing the characteristics of the region.

15. The planning system as claimed in claim 14 comprising an operator interface allowing entity-related operations to e modified or deleted by an operator of the planning system.

16. A hierarchical planning system for scheduling the operation of a plurality of autonomous entities within a defined geographical region, comprising:

a) a region planning module for generating a region-wide plan comprising at least one job to which one or more autonomous entities are assigned, wherein the geographical region comprises a plurality of localised zones having operation-defined geographic boundaries and at least one of the autonomous entities is a mobile entity that, is required to move between localised zones to implement the region-wide plan;

b) a job planning module associated with each job in the region-wide plan for generating a job plan comprising a series of tasks for the autonomous entities assigned to the associated job; and

c) a task planning module associated with each autonomous entity for generating a task plan comprising a set of actions to be performed by the associated autonomous entity as part of the associated job.

17. The hierarchical planning system as claimed in claim 16 comprising means for communicating the task plans to a hierarchical control system having individual controllers corresponding to each of the localised regions, and wherein the autonomous entities are subject to supervisory control of the individual controllers corresponding to the localised region in which the autonomous entity is located.

18. The hierarchical planning system as claimed in claim 16 wherein the autonomous entities are heterogeneous.