The companies made the announcement at MINExpo International, which was held last week in Las Vegas, US.

As part of the agreement, Hexagon will become a major distributor of Hard-Line's TeleOp tele-remote technology in the Americas in addition to Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan. It will also distribute other Hard-Line products such as Radio Remote Control (RRC), BackBone Networks, Brow Alert, Brake Release and Farsight.

Walter Siggelkow, president of Hard-Line, said: "Partnering with Hexagon is a significant step in our evolution and really shows our ability and desire to grow and adapt. This will allow both companies to be even more competitive globally, especially in massive mining markets like Latin America."

Nick Hare, president of Hexagon's mining division, added: "We're looking forward to collaborating with Hard-Line, which shares our vision of a future that's safer, sustainable and increasingly autonomous."

In addition to the partnership announcement, remote and tele-remote-control solutions specialist Hard-Line released some new products at this year's MINExpo. Its new Auto Rockbreaker is designed to automate rockbreaking tasks, while TeleOp Assist is a system designed to provide operators with intelligent steering assistance and collision detection to drastically reduce vehicle damage.

Hexagon's mining division introduced a life-of-mine smart solution called the Power of One at MINExpo, which allows digital transformation by connecting sensors and software, in-field apps and cloudware. It also launched MineMeasure, which is a tailored portfolio for drilling and blasting that combines blast design software, high-precision drills, blast movement monitoring, fragmentation analysis and enterprise analytics. Hare said that MineMeasure is a "perfect example of the Power of One".