Recent advances in remote coal mining machine sensing, guidance, and teleoperation

Robotica ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 513-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Ralston ◽  
D. W. Hainsworth ◽  
D. C. Reid ◽  
D. L. Anderson ◽  
R. J. McPhee

This paper presents some recent applications of sensing, guidance and telerobotic technology in the coal mining industry. Of special interest is the development of semi or fully autonomous systems to provide remote guidance and communications for coal mining equipment. We consider the use of radar and inertial based sensors in an attempt to solve the horizontal and lateral guidance problems associated with mining equipment automation. We also describe a novel teleoperated robot vehicle with unique communications capabilities, called the Numbat, which is used in underground mine safety and reconnaissance missions.

Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Yan Li ◽  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Haifeng Dai ◽  
Ziyan Zhao

In view of the particularity and high risk of coal mining industry, the decision-making behavior of multiple agents inside the coal-mine enterprise plays a very important role in ensuring the safety and sustainable development of coal mining industry. The existing literature studies on coal-mine safety production focus mainly on statically analyzing the game among the external entities such as the government, the enterprises themselves, and the employees inside the enterprise from a macro perspective,are short of research on revealing the dynamic interactions among the actors directly involved in the coal-mine accidents and also on proposals for effective interactions that will lead to improved safety outcomes. Therefore, this paper explores the use of evolutionary game theory to describe the interactions among the stakeholders in China’s coal-mine safety production system, which includes the organization, the first-line miners, and the first-line managers. Moreover, the paper also explores dynamic simulations of the evolutionary game model to analyze the stability of stakeholder interactions and to identify equilibrium solutions. The simulation results show that when certain conditions are met, the decision-making behavior of the organization, miners, and managers can evolve into the unique ideal steady state (1, 1, 1). In addition, the strategy portfolio with a relatively high initial proportion of three agents converges more quickly to an ideal state than a relatively low strategy portfolio. Moreover, the stable state and equilibrium values are not affected by the initial value changes. Finally, we find that the combination of positive incentive policies and strict penalties policies can make the evolutionary game system converge to desired stability faster. The application of the evolutionary game and numerical simulation when simulating the multiplayer game process of coal-mine safety production is an effective way, which provides a more effective solution to the safety and sustainable development of coal mining industry.


Author(s):  
Xian Gang Cao ◽  
Meng Yuan Zhang ◽  
Yu Rong Gong ◽  
Xiao Lin Jia ◽  
Rui Yuan Zhang

In coal mining industry, equipment safety and reliability during operation are essential in the production process. In recent years, along with the continuous improvement of intelligent coal mining equipment, reliable production requirements have simultaneously increased. Therefore, this article aims to study the maintenance decision making method that considers the safety inspection of a fully mechanized mining equipment group. The goal is to establish a maintenance decision making model that considers the safety overhaul of fully mechanized mining equipment group in order to minimize the total maintenance, production costs and safety risks. Firstly, the regular safety inspection procedure and the maintenance process were introduced. Then, a model guideline method that considers a fully mechanized mining equipment group's safety inspection was established. Finally, through the comparison of algorithms and maintenance strategies, it is proved that the maintenance decision optimization method proposed in this paper is of great significance for improving equipment reliability, improving comprehensive operation rate, reducing maintenance costs, and ensuring coal mine safety production.


Author(s):  
Hugo E. Camargo ◽  
Adam K. Smith ◽  
Peter G. Kovalchik ◽  
Rudy J. Matetic

Noise Induced Hearing Loss is the most common occupational disease in the U.S. and of paramount importance in the mining industry. According to data for 2006 from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Continuous Miner operators accounted for 30.2% of underground mining equipment operators with noise doses exceeding the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL). This figure becomes more significant considering that 49% of the 2006 national underground coal production was extracted using continuous mining methods. Thus, there is a clear need to reduce the sound radiated by Continuous Mining Machines. The first step towards efficient noise control of a Continuous Mining Machine requires identification of the various noise sources under controlled operating conditions. To this end, a 42-microphone phased array was used in conjunction with 4 reference microphones to sample the acoustic field of a machine in the Hemi-anechoic chamber of the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory. These data were processed using a frequency-domain beamforming algorithm to obtain acoustic maps of 5 sides of the machine. The focus of the test was on the conveyor noise since previous studies showed that operation of the conveyor is the most important contributor to the sound radiated by the machine. From the acoustic maps, the following potential areas for noise control were identified, and included: chain-tail-roller interaction, chain flight tip-side board interaction, and chain-upper deck interaction.


2018 ◽  
Vol 95 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 25-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bing Wang ◽  
Chao-Qun Cui ◽  
Yi-Xin Zhao ◽  
Man Chen ◽  
Xiao-Chen Yuan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Armstrong ◽  
Alain G. Galli ◽  
Carlos Petter ◽  
Renato Aurelio Petter ◽  
Anna da Silva ◽  
...  

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