An industrial application of ground penetrating radar for coal mining horizon sensing

Effective mining horizon sensing is an issue of major importance in the coal mining industry because it directly impacts the productivity and safety of the resource recovery process. However the development of automated mining horizon control capability has been significantly hindered by a fundamental lack of sensing that can reliably measure the coal-strata geological structure in the subsurface. In an attempt to advance practical solutions for this problem, this paper reports on the industrial application of radar technology at a production open cut coal mine. Here the use of ground penetrating radar (GPR) has been extensively evaluated through a series of extensive campaigns for detecting and discriminating subsurface geological strata boundaries. The mining scenario, experimental design, data collection, and validation processes are given in order to demonstrate the efficacy and challenges of using GPR for this horizon sensing application. This tutorial-style paper is intended to assist practical application of radar technology into industry.