CABLE HANDLING SYSTEM FOR LONGWALL MINING MACHINES

A method of operating a cable handling system (112) of a longwall mining machine having a shearer (110) movable along a pan line (138) to mine material along a mine face, the cable handling system including:i) a service line (202) configured to carry one or more supply lines to the shearer for facilitating shearer operation,ii) a plurality of interconnected trays (200) to accommodate the service line (202),iii) a plurality of sensor nodes (203) distributed along a length of the service line (202), andiv) a plurality of transceivers (204) distributed along a length of the pan line (138), the method comprising:a) sensing orientation, acceleration and/or position data of the service line (202) using the plurality of sensor nodes (203),b) using the plurality of transceivers to receive the orientation, acceleration and/or position data from the plurality of sensor nodes (203) and to transmit the orientation, acceleration and/or position data to a controller (206), andc) detecting, by the controller (206), an actual or imminent failure mode of the service line (202) using analysis of the orientation, acceleration and/or position data from the plurality of the sensor nodes (203).