Assessing Situation Awareness In Automated Mining Systems To Improve Safety And Productivity *Loreto Codoceo-Contreras1, Maureen Hassall1 and Danellie Lynas1 1Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, Australia, (*Presenting author: l.codoceo@uq.edu.au) Abstract The safety benefits of automation are undeniable when humans are removed from hazardous and hostile areas around machinery and unstable ground. However, crucial safety-critical aspects of human-system interaction are often overlooked in the adoption of automation in the mining industry. This is evident in the incidents reported in Australia between 2010 and 2021 involving autonomous haul trucks and surface blast-hole drills. These events were associated with a loss of situational awareness (SA), communication failures, over-trust, increased workload, and complex interactions. All these issues involved human interaction with technology. Contributing to this problem is the fact that the existing global standards and guidelines for the safe implementation of automation in mining are insufficient from a human-centred design perspective. This research involved case studies of mining systems (automated loaders, autonomous trucks, longwall automation, and autonomous drills) with different levels of automation. Site visits were undertaken to mines in Australia and Chile, specifically where automated systems have been implemented. Participants included field and control room operators, managers, supervisors, and engineering personnel. Documentation review, interviews and observations were selected as research methods. The semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data on automation transition, decision-making, data processing, and communication. Then, observations and audio recordings of the tasks were used to capture all types of communication (between operators and equipment) within the system. The proposed research sought to discover what human factors are significant for ensuring the successful implementation of automation. Two significant insights to come from the research were the identification of SA-related deficiencies and the critical elements of information exchange between system agents. Keywords Situation awareness, automation, communications, trust in automation 1. INTRODUCTION Automation has become imperative to improve productivity and safety in the mining sector, particularly for addressing rising demand, incremental operational costs, and competitive pressure. It is also acknowledged that ongoing automation and digitalisation are crucial for 22
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