Recent progress on smart mining in China: Unmanned electric locomotive

Severe safety accidents occur frequently in underground mines. It is crucial to develop safe mining technology. Smart mining is a reliable solution to this issue. The unmanned electric locomotive is one of the key components in smart mining. Literature review indicates that there are only six mines around the world that have equipped with unmanned electric locomotives, and very limited works have discussed the challenges in this field. Hence, this work aims to discuss the challenges. The first concern was underground position tracking. A solution based on wireless sensor network was introduced. Three challenging issues in wireless sensor network, that is, sensor node distribution, energy supply, and efficient data transmission, were discussed. The second concern was the control system of unmanned electric locomotives. The challenging tasks in this concern were discussed. First, the nonlinear dynamic response of the interaction between the rail and locomotive may influence the control performance of the unmanned electric locomotive. A coupled mathematical model describing the interaction may help the controller design. Second, the speed sensorless control strategy was introduced. The possible future research directions were then summarized. The discussions in this work will provide reference for optimum control system design for unmanned electric locomotives in underground mines.