Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Since the beginning of the year, the eruption of energy crises in certain parts of the world has gained global traction. To offset energy shortages, increases in coal consumption have been consecutive and considerable. Many analysts believe that coal-generated power may well be on course to creating all-time highs for the second year in a row. It is against this backdrop that the coordinated development between coal-generated power and from non-fossil fuels is expected to be highlighted at the ongoing climate talks in Egypt.

Coal mine operations require a lot of people on-site, for work that is fairly complex and dangerous. In the past month alone, there have been a number of reports of fatal mining accidents worldwide. For China, a country with some 5,300 mines and 1.3 trillion tons of proven coal reserves, recent practices in facilitating smart mining through an Industrial Internet Architecture embedded with 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and basic research may have offered food for thought in the pursuit of safe, smart, efficient and green mining.

Indeed, 5G and AI have cut across production processes from mining itself to tunnelling and transport.

Dust is unavoidable in the fully mechanised mining face, where the work environment is harsh. While remote-controlled mining has become an industry consensus, a big challenge lies in the clear and real-time visualisation. Today, the ultra-high bandwidth of 5G networks and the reversed uplink-downlink timeslot configuration technology support wireless backhaul of HD videos with hundreds of channels in real time, with the uplink bandwidth up to over 1 Gbit/s.

Using AI technology and video stitching algorithm, separate images are combined into a panoramic one. Additionally, the dust-filtering algorithm helps ensure real-time HD videos of moving shearers, even when shrouded in dust and mist, can clearly show the working environment around shearers within a radius of 20 m. So now, the low latency of 5G networks helps ensure remote and precise control of mining machines, which enables people working underground to remotely control operations at offices.

Underground tunnelling is the most difficult and dangerous of all coal mine operations. Accidents during tunnelling account for more than 40% of all coal mine accidents. In traditional mines, underground safety relies on manual efforts, such as team leaders supervising team members. That makes comprehensively identifying and controlling risk elements highly improbable, in an area where more than 50% of tunnelling accidents are attributed to human error. With 5G backhauling real-time onsite video while AI algorithms track and detect underground operations, real-time alarms could be triggered when violations and quality issues are detected, ensuring operations safety from a technical standpoint.

While transporting, belt conveyors are the main transport mode of coal mines. But they have been inefficient. A conveyor system that is 20 kilometres long or more needs almost 20 inspection staff. With 5G backhauls real-time video of the main transportation belt and AI algorithms accurately identifying anomalies, the system turns time-phased manual inspections into 24/7 intelligent monitoring and cuts the number of underground inspection personnel by 20%.

On the equipment side, underground production involves more than 1,000 types of devices. Nearly half of them do not support remote control centralised control or remote management. These devices use over 10 types of operating systems, 500 types of interface protocols, and various data formats. Their operations are complicated and inefficient, and no interconnections or interoperations are available.

Then came MineHarmony, an operating system that unified device languages, simplified operations, and unattended inspections. The system covers devices of all sizes, and uses unified protocols, to enable data sharing between devices, human-machine interconnections machine-machine interconnections and ambient awareness. Based on comprehensive real-time data the command and dispatch personnel monitor mining operations, from above ground, and intelligently dispatch tasks in real time, allowing safer and more efficient production. For example, the command and dispatch centre can detect incidents, such as gas overflows, organise an evacuation, shut down mining equipment and ventilate the site in a timely manner boosting emergency response efficiency.

Looking on, powered by achievements in math, physics, and other basic research areas, 5G + AI will be applied in more mining scenarios. Expert experience will be summarised into AI algorithms to free people from hazardous, complicated and repetitive work. For example, during the operations for pressure relief and rock burst prevention, AI-based video analysis will help intelligently detect the drilling depth, enabling traceable quality and controllable processes while safeguarding the underground production environment.

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