Automation in U.S. longwall coal mining: A state-of-the-art review

This paper reviews the development of U.S. longwall mining from an unknown to became the world standard in the past five decades with emphasis on automation. Large scale longwall face equipment were imported from Germany and United Kingdom to increase production in the 1970s and great effort was made to improve them to suit U.S. conditions, rather than domestic market. Automation began with the development of electrohydraulic shields in 1984 and continue to present. Introduction of first generation semi-automated longwall system occurred in 1995 and step-to-step improvement continues to present following the development of sensor technology and internet of things (IOT). Since then, emphasis on new development has been concentrated on the improvement of equipment reliability, miner’s health and safety as well as production, including dust control techniques, proximity sensor, anti-collision and remote control. Automation is classified into two categories: automation of individual face equipment and automation of longwall system. The automation development of longwall system is divided into three stages: shearer-initiated-shield-advance (SISA), semi-automated longwall system, and remote control shearer.