As the 1.5-meter-long drilling tube slowly approached a coal bed in a mine in Shanxi province in Northern China, a screen at the control center 500 meters away displayed images and data collected by the drilling tube.
Wen Haiming, the chief engineer at Shanxi Qingfeng Coal Industry Company, stated: “Drilling becomes automatic with artificial intelligence.”
To ensure safety in underground coal mines and prevent water-related accidents, exploration and drainage steps are required. The construction of smart mining facilities now allows the use of artificial intelligence to complete these steps through video monitoring and sensor devices.
According to Wang Yu, the executive vice president of Jingjing Shuzhi Technology Co., a provider of smart underground water exploration services, artificial intelligence enhances the quality of drilling and construction processes and provides strong support for underground mining operations.
Coal mining is a high-risk industry. In recent years, China has been promoting the smart transformation of its coal mines and increasing the application of artificial intelligence in underground mining.
By January, Shanxi had built 118 smart coal mines.
A smart monitoring and management system was installed in the Maitaihao coal mine in Inner Mongolia, Northern China in 2022.
The system combines intelligent recognition with artificial intelligence and industry operation technology to enhance real-time mine transport capacity and achieve intelligent speed control.
Ni Heli, a member of the mine’s electricity and mechanical transmission team, mentioned that the system effectively reduces electricity and equipment losses, ensuring balanced and flexible operations regardless of the amount of extracted coal.
Ni stated: “It is estimated that the system can reduce electricity consumption by 2 million kilowatts per year and cut electricity bills by about 4 million yuan ($553,000).”
The complex conditions of underground mining and the geological structures of different coal mines impose high requirements for artificial intelligence.
A group of coal mining companies in Shanxi has established an integrated online industrial platform with a large artificial intelligence model at its core.
Wang Hui, the general manager of Shanxi Jingyun Communication Technology Company, mentioned that the platform stores data from more than 400 coal mines.
According to Wang, it can help reduce the research and development threshold in the field of artificial intelligence, rapidly generate intelligent products, achieve repetition and innovation in product by providing vast amounts of data, application scenarios for coal mines, and services for training large-scale industrial model.
(Xinhua)
