An effective method for longwall automation in thin coal seam

With the exhaustion of thick coal seams in some mines, thinner coal seam extraction will become the main trend of mining industry in the near future. However, due to the rigors of the mining environment, operations in the thinner coal seam are hardly acceptable by the miners. Therefore, in order to improve the production and assure the miners´ security, automation technologies are advised perpetually. Nevertheless, current automation technology applied in the thinner coal seam is not ideal as communication between the different subsystems is easily interrupted and equipments are always damaged by each other in the narrow space. This paper firstly introduces remote integration control of the shearer machine, during which it is focused on that how communication stability can be improved in the thin coal seam, and then puts forward an easy and achievable method called replicated trajectory cutting (RTC) to realize the automation of the mining machine. Developments are achieved for the automation of mining machine. After the description of a real test, many lessons are learnt to construct the automation system of coal extraction in underground mine. Additionally, much experience can be immediately applicable to other longwall mining operations.