A project by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organisation (CSIRO) to automate the transportation of
molten aluminum during the smelter process could some day see
machines performing tasks without the need for human control.
Researchers at CSIRO's Information and Communication
Technologies Centre in Brisbane have been developing components
to automate hot metal carriers, the 20-tonne forklift-like
vehicles that transport molten aluminum in large containers
called crucibles during the smelting process. Although still in
the development and trial stage, the hope is to take humans out
of many aspects of the production process, improving both
efficiency and overall safety. Just as workers have been
supplanted by robotics in many assembly lines, automation is
likely to penetrate even further into industrial activities
"Eventually, autonomous vehicles will be ubiquitous in such
production industries as smelters and mining," Ashley Tews, lead
researcher for the autonomous hot metal carrier