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    Caterpillar quarrying AHS at Richards Spur: design and haulage notes for planners

    September 29, 2026|

    Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

    Caterpillar quarrying AHS at Richards Spur: design and haulage notes for planners

    First reported on International Mining – News

    30 Second Briefing

    Caterpillar is extending its Command for hauling autonomous haulage system into quarry-scale operations with a new deployment at Dolese Bros’ Richards Spur quarry in Oklahoma, following its earlier rollout on Cat 777 trucks at Carmeuse’s Drummond Island quarry in Michigan supported by Fabick Cat. The Richards Spur project applies AHS to a high-production limestone operation using rigid-frame haul trucks on short, repetitive quarry cycles rather than traditional large open-pit layouts. For geotechnical and quarry planners, this signals OEM confidence that AHS can handle tighter haul roads, variable bench conditions and more constrained traffic patterns typical of aggregates sites.

    Technical Brief

    • Command for hauling is being adapted from large open-pit layouts to smaller quarry geometries.
    • Rigid-frame haul trucks are being automated rather than traditional ultra-class mining trucks.
    • Short, repetitive haul cycles demand precise localisation, collision avoidance and tight manoeuvring logic in the AHS.
    • Aggregates-scale benches and faces require the system to accommodate more frequent road and face reconfigurations.
    • Traffic interactions with manned equipment in constrained quarry areas increase the importance of geofencing and exclusion zones.
    • For other limestone and aggregates quarries, the deployments provide early operational data on AHS performance in confined layouts.

    Our Take

    Caterpillar’s Richards Spur and Drummond Island quarry AHS rollouts sit alongside its recent Luck Stone MineStar Command expansion in Virginia, signalling that quarries in the United States are becoming an early proving ground for autonomous hauling outside large open-pit mines.

    Across our mining coverage, Caterpillar features repeatedly in 2026 items on both autonomy and fleet electrification (e.g. BHP’s 793 XE trials at Jimblebar and the D11 XE dozer launch), suggesting the company is positioning its US quarry AHS deployments as part of a broader technology stack rather than a standalone product line.

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    Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.

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