ABB Automation Extended: Modernising the Mining Industry

Mining and other industries have a new tool in their efforts to modernise their systems – ABB’s Automation Extended programme.

It builds on ABB’s proven platforms and safeguards existing investments, providing a modern automation ecosystem for advanced analytics, AI and IoT integration.

ABB says the programme “allows technologies to be adopted at customers’ pace without operational risk”.

Modernisation without disruption

It says its Automation Extended programme is a strategic evolution of its distributed control systems, designed to help industries modernise without disruption.

The company adds: “Building on ABB’s long-standing leadership with the world’s largest DCS installed base and vision in process automation, Automation Extended outlines how future automation capabilities can be introduced progressively.

“It preserves system integrity while enabling the flexibility, scalability and efficiency needed for the next era of industrial operations.”

Peter Terwiesch, President, ABB’s Automation business area, says: “In industries we serve – many operating large and complex infrastructures that deliver essential resources – our customers rely on modernisation without disruption.

“Automation Extended delivers exactly that: bringing future-ready capabilities into the systems they know and trust, with security and interoperability at the core.”

Addressing market volatility

The new programme is set in the context of challenging circumstances for industrial operations: volatile markets, cyber security challenges, regulatory pressures and a rapidly changing workforce.

ABB says its tool addresses these realities by “enabling innovation with agility and pace without disruption to production, supporting advanced analytics and IoT integration, and simplifying operations for diverse skill levels”.

It adds: “Automation Extended will support our customers in the mining industry to further enhance resilience and growth in safety, productivity and sustainability.

“It will pave the road to autonomy, leveraging AI technologies and directly addressing the industry’s needs to retain, share and augment the knowledge of the workforce.”

The company says it will also fuel the energy transition and enable remote operations while providing the operator with an “immersive experience and contextualised information and support”, to ensure operator effectiveness and highest plant productivity and reliability.

Leaders are behind transformation

It comes as research in ABB’s Mining’s Moment survey shows that 77% of mining leaders see integrated electrification, automation and digitalisation as the key enablers of a sustainable transformation in the industry.

Automation Extended helps the mining industry to connect systems and data across silos, enabling interoperability of solutions from mine to port.

The system is based on separation of concerns principles, with two distinct yet interconnected environments:

• The control environment: a software‑defined domain that ensures robust, and reliable control for critical processes
• The digital environment: securely connected to the control layer, enabling advanced applications, edge intelligence and real‑time analytics. It uses AI and machine learning for decision support without disturbing control structures.

A single, unified and comprehensive automation service approach for ecosystem lifecycle management and optimization is applied for the management and maintenance of these diverse technological environments.

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ABB says, by integrating new technologies such as an Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) backbone and a Cloud-Native Architecture for managing both environments, the ecosystem enables a broad spectrum of enhancements.

These include:

• Proactively detecting and correcting process anomalies
• Optimising maintenance strategies through continuous condition monitoring of critical assets
• Elevating engineering with efficient modular approaches ready for deployment across diverse hardware platforms.