Steer offers remote control systems for heavy machinery and autonomous haulage solutions for the mining and quarry industry. The company’s mission is to provide solutions to improve safety, sustainability and productivity in the construction, quarry and mining industry.
The company's origin started as a project for clean-up of the Hjerkinn military firing range by the entrepreneur Gjermundshaug Anlegg. Remote-controlled machines were needed to ensure the safety of the workers, and novel technology were developed. Building on this, Steer AS was founded in 2018.
Steer’s major shareholder is Gjermundshaug Group, a Norwegian construction company with roots back to 1949. It is owned and operated by Ole Gjermundshaug; grandson of the founder. Gjermundshaug Group has a yearly turnover of 100 million USD.
The minority shareholder is Degree Consulting Group AS, a software development company. Degree is owned and operated by Njål Gjermundshaug; Ole’s brother. Degree works with development for both inhouse products and clients throughout Scandinavia. Degree has a yearly turnover of 6 million USD.
Njål is the CEO of STEER and holds a master’s degree in Informatics and Artificial Intelligence from NTNU in Norway. Njål is a serial entrepreneur, cofounding companies such as Steer AS, Degree AS, Xtramile AS and Filemail.com
Lars is the CTO of Steer. He is an electronics wizard responsible for engineering and manufacturing the Steer hardware, as well as the software running on these devices. Lars is also involved in the roll-out phase of all customer projects.
Vebjørn holds a master’s degree in cybernetics from NTNU in Norway. Vebjørn is the software lead of Steer - spearheading the development of disruptive and new software solutions that brings value to our customers.
Severin joined the team in 2022 while finishing his electrical engineering bachelor degree. Severin takes care of tasks such as electrical and mechanical engineering, on-site installation and testing. He is also heavily involved in development work related to image processing.
Jørgen joined Steer in 2023 after finishing his electrical engineering bachelor degree. Jørgen works with electrical engineering, on-site installation & testing, documentation and general product development.
Simen finished his cybernetics master's degree in 2023 and started in Steer as a software developer focusing on computer vision, system integration as well as major software developments.
In 2008 Gjermundshaug Group won a large tender for the Norwegian Armed Forces. The job largely consisted of cleaning up a decommissioned artillery range used by the army for over 50 years. The artillery range was over 165 km2 - an area larger than Washington DC. The area contained a large number of undetonated bombs/shells, so excavation had to be done via remote control in order to clean up the area safely. Gjermundshaug Group were unable to find any business´ already having the necessary technology for running machines remotely, and therefore acquired several tech companies in Norway to develop an in-house solution. 6 months later - several remote-controlled Caterpillar excavators were operational in the artillery range and the tedious cleanup process started, which is still being worked on today. Operators are often located hundreds of kilometers away - safe and sound from the explosives.
A few years later - articulated dump trucks (ADT) from Caterpillar were introduced into the project - moving dirt and explosives to assigned areas. The dump trucks were initially remote controlled by operators - but it was soon decided that this could be automated - so an autonomous system based on GPS were developed and installed onto the ADTs. The dump trucks now drove 7 kilometers by themselves, freeing up operator time to focus on loading the trucks and manually controlling the ADT’s at the location where the dump was loaded. Through this change in operations, it was discovered that the autonomous ADT’s outperformed the remote controlled and operator driven ADT’s as they could drive significantly faster.
Over 500 metric tons of undetonated ammunition and metal scrap has been removed by the Norwegian Armed Forces and Gjermundshaug Group since the project started in 2008, and it’s expected that it will be perfectly safe to visit the area in 2021.
During the last 10 years, the decommissioned artillery range has been gradually reverted back to its natural state with no remnants of military operations. During these years, representatives of Caterpillar in the US visited the work grounds several times to see the Steer system in action.
Similar cleanup jobs have been undertaken by Gjermundshaug Group for the Norwegian Armed Forces, Danish Armed Forces, PEAB, Orica and Dyno Nobel ASA, using remote controlled machines built by the people behind Steer. We´ve been working steadily for over 10.000 hours - moving over 200.000 cubic meters of dirt.
