Bell Product Manager, Brad Castle, explains: “In addition to embracing the IoT, Bell Equipment has chosen to be technology agnostic. This means that the computer system in our Bell ADTs enables our machines to integrate easily with various third-party technologies designed to make operations safer and more productive, such as proximity detection (PDS) and collision avoidance systems (CAS).
“In addition to this, Bell ADTs have a technologically advanced platform with access to our Bell Fleetm@tic® telematics system. This gives fleet owners and operations managers a complete picture of their machine health and productivity from one user-friendly interface.
“The simplicity and accessibility of Fleetm@tic® is a game changer,” says Brad. “Customers have a secure login and password, which enables them to monitor their machines from anywhere at any time, and they can generate reports to be delivered daily, weekly or monthly.It’s a highly effective tool to identify bottlenecks, balance workloads and schedule proactive maintenance to minimize unplanned downtime.”
In terms of safety, Fleetm@tic® provides real-time tracking of a machine’s location, speed,and operating status. For asset management, geofencing enables owners to set safe zones, speed limits, and prohibit tipping in hazardous or prohibited areas. Alerts are automatically issued for fault codes, unsafe tipping and driving violations.
Productivity of Bell ADTs is tracked by monitoring metrics including laden and unladen cycles, payloads and fuel burn.
Autonomous and PDS-ready platform
According to Brad, Bell was one of the first OEMs to offer an ADT ready for Level 9 PDS and CAS solutions in response to changes to South Africa’s mining legislation regarding trackless mobile machines that came into effect in December 2022.
PDS improves the operator’s awareness by detecting potential collision threats and warning the operator visually and audibly, whereas CAS intervenes by either slowing the vehicle down or stopping it to prevent or at least reduce the severity of collisions between equipped vehicles and equipped pedestrians.
Brad says that this paved the way for autonomous Bell ADTs and, thanks to being technology agnostic, Bell can work with numerous service providers, which meet the ISO requirements, to offer customers fully remote controlled, supervised autonomous and complete autonomous solutions, depending on their requirements.
“We have already successfully integrated with several different systems through offering a combination of adaptable hardware, simulation tools and shared testing facilities to service providers to support our customers implementing third party technologies.”
“The Bell-designed gateway controller can be retrofitted to current and older-generation ADTs to provide a network interface for system control. Installations can be easily completed on site at the customers operation,” says Brad.
