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Standards & Regulations

Technical standards, regulatory frameworks, and compliance for autonomous mining. Deep dives into ISO 23725, functional safety, and interoperability.

No U-Turn Required: What Bidirectional Haulage Actually Changes

Cabless, battery-electric autonomous haul trucks are arriving fast, and the newest can now drive both directions without turning around. The headline is the vehicle. The real shift is one layer down, in the route graphs, geofences, and traffic rules that decide how an autonomous fleet moves.

Aug 134 min read

Autonomous haul truck stopped at a fork in an open-pit mine road at dawn, one path lit and one in shadow — illustrating the choice between open and closed autonomy architectures.

Hitachi Construction Machinery and Pronto Sign an Open-Automation MoU: What It Commits, and What It Doesn't

Hitachi Construction Machinery and Pronto announced a memorandum of understanding to pursue open automation for mining. An MoU is intent, not a binding contract—so we lay out what it commits, what it doesn't, and the one question to carry into every "open" autonomy deal: interoperable in the ISO 23725 sense, or just brand-agnostic at the wheels?

Aug 54 min read

Loader dumps rock into dump truck at dusk in a snowy quarry, with point.one text overlaid and mountains in the background.

What mining can borrow from the industries that already have a positioning layer

Two vehicles from different vendors can both report centimeter accuracy and still disagree about where the ground is. Automotive, agriculture, surveying, and logistics already made positioning a shared layer with a defined accuracy and integrity budget — here's what autonomous mining can borrow.

Jul 2210 min read

Two autonomous haul trucks approach a haul-road junction at blue-hour dusk in an open-pit mine, the negotiated gap between them centred in the frame.

The interface is the contract: ICDs at every level, from sensor to site

Ask why an autonomous-machine program is late and you'll rarely land on an algorithm — you'll land on an interface no one wrote down. A case for the Interface Control Document, sensor to site.

Jul 88 min read

A single haul truck in an open-pit mine at dusk, representing where mining's Scope 3 emissions data chain begins under new GHG Protocol reporting rules.

The Scope 3 Reckoning: Why Mining's Next Reporting Standard Runs Through the FMS

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s latest updates are shifting emissions reporting toward primary, traceable data, making fleet management systems the ultimate starting point for compliance. As data-type disaggregation becomes mandatory, building an auditable, open data lineage is no longer just a sustainability goal, it is a core procurement imperative.

Jun 116 min read

An autonomous mining haul truck on a graded haul road at blue hour, with the silhouette of a sensor-equipped autonomous passenger vehicle visible in the soft middle distance — illustrating the transfer of safety frameworks from on-road autonomous vehicles to autonomous mining

Safety Lessons from Billions of Autonomous Miles: What AV Deployment Teaches About Mining Autonomy

The on-road AV industry has spent over a decade developing safety frameworks across more than 200 million autonomous miles. Three of them — Operational Design Domains, structured safety cases, and transparent crash reporting — are ready for mining to adopt. The validation problem on a mine site is more tractable than on public roads, but only if the industry imposes the same rigour.

May 126 min read

Mining haul trucks on a mining road with digital network lines overlay. Overcast sky and rocky terrain set the scene.

The Flexibility Problem: Why ISO 23725 Doesn't Tell You Who Does What

ISO 23725 defines interfaces between FMS and AHS but deliberately leaves architectural responsibilities open—here's why that flexibility matters.

Dec 30, 20256 min read

EMESRT Level 9 in an Autonomous World: What Intervention Controls Do When There’s No Driver

Level 9 requires automatic intervention controls that can brake equipment when collision risks are detected. But what does that mean in a fully autonomous operation where there's no operator to warn? We explore how Level 9 functions as an independent safety layer, the role of ISO 21815 in open architectures, and why redundant safety systems matter even when sophisticated AI is driving the truck.

Oct 22, 20254 min read

How ISO23725 Relates to Open Autonomy

ISO23725 enables Open Autonomy by standardizing interfaces between fleet management and autonomous systems, freeing mines from vendor lock-i

Mar 27, 20252 min read

ISO 23725:2024 Published Standard

OpenAutonomy.com is pleased to announce the publication of ISO 23725:2024 – the international standard for autonomous systems and fleet...

Aug 8, 20241 min read