Abstract: A method for controlling autonomous mine vehicle operations includes the steps of detecting a dust condition for an autonomously operating mine vehicle performing optical environment scanning for positioning the mine vehicle at a worksite, transitioning the mine vehicle operating in an automatic driving mode to a dust driving mode in response to detecting the dust condition, the dust driving mode being associated with one or more control actions for autonomous operation of the mine vehicle, controlling dead-reckoning based positioning for updating the position of the mine vehicle during the dust driving mode, monitoring of a dead-reckoning error parameter during the dust driving mode, and in response to the dead-reckoning error parameter reaching an error threshold, controlling the mine vehicle to stop or reduce speed.