Cultivating new quality productivity in action | Intelligent revolution deep in the coal sea - Shandong University of Science and Technology team continues to cultivate intelligent mining equipment
2026-07-28
At the Dahaize Coal Mine in Yulin, Shaanxi, a belt conveyor stretches for several kilometers along the roadway, with tens of thousands of rollers supporting the belt day and night. Along the conveyor, a roller replacement robot is autonomously walking, accurately completing the inspection and replacement of rollers in the narrow space between the belt and the crossbeam.
This intelligent robot that liberates miners from high-risk and heavy positions is from the team of Professor Zhang Qiang from the School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering at Shandong University of Science and Technology. In recent years, the team has used multi technology integration to solve the operational difficulties in special mining scenarios, allowing new quality productivity to take root deep in the coal sea.
A robot pulled out by a roller
The idler roller is the "joint" of the conveyor, which is prone to wear and jamming under humid, dusty, and heavy load conditions. If not replaced in a timely manner, it may cause the belt to deviate, and in severe cases, it may lead to safety accidents. In the past, replacing rollers was a heavy and dangerous task: miners had to carry dozens of pounds of tools, inspect each section of the tunnel, stop the machine when a fault was found, and then drill into the narrow gap between the belt and the crossbeam, relying on manual labor to complete disassembly and installation.
To change this situation, Dahaize Coal Mine has requested Shandong University of Science and Technology to develop a robot to replace manual inspection and replacement of rollers? Zhang Qiang immediately led his team to Yulin, followed the miners down the well, walked the entire conveyor line, and surveyed key dimensions such as tunnel width, belt height above ground, and roller support spacing one by one.
In the laboratory, it is not difficult for a robotic arm to grasp standard workpieces, but once it reaches a narrow space and dimly lit underground, the difficulty sharply increases, "Zhang Qiang said. The narrow space of the tunnel and the large amount of suspended coal dust greatly reduce the recognition rate of machine vision. What's even more tricky is that the roller bracket is generally deformed due to long-term load-bearing and corrosion, and if the robot is positioned and clamped according to the standard dimensions on the drawing, it is often difficult to align.
To break through the bottleneck, Zhang Qiang's team has been stationed in the mining area for several months, repeatedly correcting the multi-sensor fusion algorithm and control parameters. After dozens of underground testing iterations, the robot can finally walk autonomously along the conveyor in narrow tunnels. With the help of multi-sensor fusion technology, it can accurately identify faulty rollers and complete the entire process of roller disassembly, grasping, and installation in narrow spaces.
The key to whether robots can truly play a role underground lies in their ability to accurately locate without relying on satellite navigation, "Zhang Qiang said. Without satellite signals underground, dust, darkness, vibration, impact, and equipment obstruction overlap each other. Robots not only need to be" active, "but also" able to understand, find accurately, and judge.
Around this goal, Zhang Qiang's team continues to conduct research on intelligent perception of coal rock interfaces, real-time monitoring of equipment status, and other technologies. They have built a multi-source fusion positioning system, allowing mining robots to "understand" the underground environment and achieve centimeter level positioning in extreme environments.
From standalone intelligence to system intelligence
Mining production cannot be completed independently by a single machine. Moving from single machine intelligence to system intelligence is another hurdle that Zhang Qiang's team has overcome.
Modern fully mechanized mining faces are composed of coal mining machines, hydraulic supports, and scraper conveyors, and fluctuations in the status of one equipment will propagate throughout the entire system, "said Zhang Qiang. The team's focus has expanded from "whether a robot can complete one action" to "whether multiple devices can form a continuous operating system". In order to grasp the real working conditions, the team "soaked" in the coal sea to carry out scientific research and development. They installed hundreds of sensors on the complete set of underground equipment to collect massive data such as pressure, load, vibration, displacement, temperature, etc.
After arduous research and development, Zhang Qiang's team has developed the "High Reliability and Safe Mining Guarantee Technology and Equipment for 10 Million Tons of Coal Mining Face", which supports the complete set of equipment to achieve fault free operation of the fully mechanized mining face with an annual output of 10 million tons of coal. This achievement has accumulated 37 authorized invention patents and 29 utility model patents, promoting a 20% increase in production efficiency and a 70% reduction in operating personnel.
Not long ago, Zhang Qiang's team took the lead in winning a key special project of a national key project, and is making every effort to overcome the "hard bone" of intelligent excavation of rectangular section tunnels in hard rock, providing core equipment support for the development of strategic mineral resources and major underground engineering construction in China.
The challenges in the industry are the topics we are tackling, "said Zhang Qiang. The team will focus on breaking through key technologies such as efficient cutting of hard rocks, adaptive support for rectangular sections, and collaborative control of multiple excavation, support, and transportation processes. They will develop a robot system for integrated collaborative operations of excavation, support, and transportation, in order to continuously cultivate and strengthen new quality productivity through independent innovation, and accurately respond to national strategies and industry needs. (Looking into the New Era)
Edit:He ChenXi Responsible editor:Tang WanQi
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