Epiroc AB, a leading productivity and sustainability partner for the mining and infrastructure industries, has won an order from Heidelberg Materials, one of the world's largest integrated manufacturers of heavy building materials and solutions, to adapt and implement autonomous solutions for driverless haul trucks at a quarry in Australia. The deployment extends Epiroc’s award-winning autonomous solution LinkOA beyond mining to include the aggregates sector.
Credit: Epiroc
A truck at a quarry – not one of Heidelberg Materials’ sites.
The proof-of-concept project will demonstrate how automation can be applied in mid-scale quarry operations, where design variability and more complex conditions compared to more standardized surface mining operations have traditionally limited the adoption of automation.
“We are proud to partner with Heidelberg Materials to support them on their autonomous journey,” says Helena Hedblom, Epiroc’s President and CEO. “Our LinkOA system is already a proven mining automation technology, and with this project, we look forward to bringing the same productivity and safety benefits to the aggregates sector.”
The order follows Epiroc’s crucial role in creating the world’s largest OEM-agnostic and fully autonomous mine, Roy Hill in Australia, using LinkOA. The parties have agreed not to disclose the order value.
Heidelberg Materials announced recently that it is “working closely with established technology partners” to ramp up the use of autonomous heavy mobile equipment globally, aiming to reach around 30 autonomous vehicles this year and more than 100 by the end of 2028. As one of Heidelberg Materials’ technology partners, Epiroc will deploy LinkOA for some of the company’s Komatsu HD605 haul trucks, which will also interact with loaders and auxiliary vehicles, at a quarry in Western Australia.
The project focuses on validating safe mixed-fleet operation, improved haulage efficiency, reduced operator dependency, and system performance across varying conditions. Autonomous haulage brings proven productivity and safety benefits such as 24/7 operation, removal of operators from hazardous environments, and reduction of accidents linked to human error and fatigue.
LinkOA is Epiroc’s open, OEM-agnostic autonomy platform that unifies haulage, drilling, and blasting under a single intelligent control layer. Using advanced sensors, cameras, and AI, LinkOA improves situational awareness, removes personnel from hazardous environments, and enables real-time, data-driven decision-making across mixed fleets.
In 2025, Hancock Iron Ore’s Roy Hill mine, with support of the LinkOA system used on 78 mining trucks, became the world’s largest OEM-agnostic, fully autonomous mine. More than 350 million tonnes of material have been moved autonomously at this mine.
Also, last year, Epiroc, using LinkOA, partnered with Luck Stone, one of the United States’ leading producers of crushed stone, to deploy a fully autonomous SmartROC D65 drill rig. This was also the first fully autonomous surface drill rig delivered to the quarry market worldwide.
LinkOA was named Engineering Product of the Year at the 2026 Digital Engineering Awards.