"Coal" speaks "wisdom": What kind of sparks will be created when coal miners encounter intelligence?

The 2024 China Guizhou International Energy Industry Expo and Trade Fair opened on June 20 at the Guiyang International Conference and Exhibition Center. The "Coal Mine Intelligent Technology and Equipment Exhibition" set up there attracted special attention. Coal miners always give people a bold and rough impression, which seems to have nothing to do with intelligence. However, when intelligent black technology meets "coal mining", what kind of sparks will collide? Let's listen to the "coal" say "wisdom"!

01 Those "black technologies" of intelligent coal mining

▶Unmanned intelligent coal mining machine

While most people are immersed in the inherent impression of coal miners as described by Lu Yao that the work is dirty, hard, intense and risky, now, hundreds of meters underground, the coal mining machine cutters are spinning and cutting the coal walls in an orderly manner, but no one can be seen at the coal mining face.

The coal mining face of Shendong Daliuta Coal Mine of Shendong Coal of China Energy Group is supported by fully automatic hydraulic supports (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

This is all thanks to the unmanned intelligent comprehensive mining technology . In the past, the "dark" coal mining technicians can now sit in a clean and tidy intelligent dispatching and control center in a suit and tie, lightly click "one-button start", and the underground coal mining machine thousands of meters away will rotate rapidly, the coal mining machine will remember the cutting, the hydraulic support will automatically follow the machine, and the scraper conveyor will automatically move. The "three machines and equipment" work together tacitly, and large pieces of "black gold" will be peeled off from the coal wall and continuously come to the ground through the scraper conveyor and coal conveyor belt.

▶Invisible electronic fence

Anyone who has read Journey to the West knows that every time before Sun Wukong went out to beg for food, he would draw a circle for Tang Monk to ensure his safety. At the coal mining site 100 meters deep, a circle is also drawn for our coal miners. This circle is the underground electronic fence of the coal mine, also known as the personnel approach protection system , which is widely used for safety warnings in key underground dangerous areas such as excavation working faces, coal bunkers, closed walls, and belt conveyors.

When someone approaches the warning danger zone underground, the system will automatically issue an audible and visual alarm and trigger the equipment to shut down, thereby ensuring the safety of underground workers to the greatest extent possible.

▶Unmanned coal truck

While the testing of unmanned vehicles on the road has been in full swing in recent years, the remote control technology of unmanned mining trucks and electric shovels has long been commonplace in open-pit mines 100 meters deep: in the remote control room 3,000 meters away, the driver accurately controls every movement of the equipment through the operation signals transmitted by the 5G network; on the winding mountain road, unmanned trucks fully loaded with black and shiny coal are automatically transported in an orderly manner. Unmanned driving not only reduces the costs of vehicle maintenance, high fuel consumption, tire damage, etc. caused by irregular operations, but also avoids casualties and accidents, truly realizing the inherent safety of production operations.

The unmanned mining truck model displayed at the 2019 China International Mining Conference (Source: Video screenshot)

▶72 different intelligent mining lamps

Mining lamps are essential tools for coal miners to work underground. In recent years, with the upgrading and construction of intelligent coal mines, mining lamps are no longer just for lighting, but have been integrated into the Internet of Things platform with smart wearables as the core, and have been transformed into "N-in-1" smart mining lamps that integrate positioning, video, wireless communication, environmental monitoring and other functions .

Through mobile communication technology, ground personnel can directly view underground videos, environmental parameters, location information, and real-time working conditions of miners through mining lamps, truly realizing that with a lamp in hand, there is no need to worry about going down the mine. After leaving the mine, the charging of the mining lamp can also be directly handed over to the intelligent mining lamp charging cabinet through iris recognition technology .

02Technical bottlenecks of coal mine intelligence

The intelligentization of coal mines requires the joint efforts and long-term cooperation of multiple disciplines such as geological exploration, wireless detection and perception, wireless communication, and electrical automation. At this stage, there are still some technical bottlenecks and blockages that need to be broken through.

▶Underground communication issues

Unlike the transmission of information on the ground, communications underground in mines face harsh environments such as high temperature, high pressure, and high humidity, as well as strict explosion-proof safety requirements. In addition, there are stringent technical requirements such as long transmission distance, strong penetration ability, and short signal delay .

Overall, the application of 5G technology in coal mines is still at the level of network improvement. The key technologies and business models of application scenarios have not yet been broken through, the compatibility, security and reliability of application software are difficult to guarantee, and it is difficult to form a technology and application explosion point.

Mine workers show that they can view various indicators in the mine in real time through their mobile phones (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

▶Transparent geological model issues

Under the current detection technology, we are still unable to fully grasp the three-dimensional shape and appearance of underground geological bodies in coal mines, that is, the three-dimensional model and shape of underground geological bodies cannot be fully established . In recent years, although China has achieved a series of theoretical results and practical technologies in transparent geological modeling, there are still many obstacles in the integration of geological models and real-time dynamic exploration data . There is still a gap between exploration technology and the intelligence, precision and effectiveness of mining equipment, which have restricted the intelligent mining of coal mines to a certain extent.

▶System compatibility and coordination issues

The coal mine production system is a typical complex giant system, involving various business systems such as mining, excavation, machinery, transportation, and communication. The subsystems are characterized by a wide variety, large number, and multiple levels. Therefore, intelligent coal mines need to build nearly 100 subsystems such as basic application platforms, excavation systems, and mining systems, and need to consider the compatibility of data, networks, business, and control between different systems, so as to form a smart coal mine that operates intelligently in the entire process of development, mining, transportation, sorting, safety assurance, and production management. However, at present, the coal mine intelligent system still has technical bottlenecks such as the inability to unify data standards, poor compatibility of network communication protocols, and poor compatibility and collaborative control of business systems.

03 Future Technology Outlook for Intelligent Coal Mines

In the future, with the new round of coal mining technology revolution and digital revolution, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data technologies are changing with each passing day. By gathering production and operation data of coal mines with different production modes and different geological conditions, deeply integrating data information and application scenarios, and forming a complete chain integrating data collection, information extraction, and value transfer, it will become the only way to crack the intelligent mining of coal mines. In order to achieve this goal, we need to:

In the dispatching and command center of Tashan Coal Mine, various data of underground work are displayed on the monitoring screen. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

1. Build an open big data platform, systematically integrate data from various processes in coal mines, and provide unified, professional and open data services;

2. Build a coal mine data governance and management system to manage the entire life cycle of coal mine master data, metadata, and business data, thereby realizing coal mine data management and application;

3. Build a comprehensive coal mining industry cloud platform, and through the construction of a multi-dimensional data model, truly realize intelligent, automated and unmanned mining!

References:

[1] Wang Guofa. Discussion on the latest technological progress and problems of coal mine intelligence[J]. Coal Science and Technology, 2022, 50(1):27.

[2] Yang Muyan. How to protect coal mine safety with “electronic fence”[N]. China Energy News, 2024-04-22 (015).

[3] Zhang Xiao. Construction of intelligent integrated management and control platform of Pingzhuang Coal Industry[J]. Industrial and Mining Automation, 2023, 49 (S1): 7-11.

Author: Liu Hanbin, Senior Engineer, Shanxi Coal Geology Bureau

Reviewer: Liu Qinjie, Professor of School of Mining Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Produced by: China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., China Science and Technology Publishing House (Beijing) Digital Media Co., Ltd.