Calibration of mining drilling rig boom equipped with feeder guiding system FGS

The article presents a complete calibration procedure of a drilling rig mechatronic boom with eight degrees of freedom, designed to work in underground metal ore mines. Such a redundant number of degrees of freedom results from the necessity of traversing the boom parallel to the plane of the drilled face, maintaining a constant orientation of the drilling frame. The boom cooperates with the FGS Feeder Guiding System, which facilitates the operator to precisely drill shot metrics using the forward kinematics equations. Due to the use of hydraulic actuators, for proper operation, this system requires periodic calibration routine carried out directly underground in the mine. For this purpose, a particular procedure comprising laser beam emitter rigidly mounted on the machine was adopted. The article contains the structure of the boom, its most important geometrical and kinematic parameters, the forward kinematics equations, and the underground calibration algorithm of individual joint variables.