Intelligent Rock Drilling Robots Deployed at Mines

Rock drilling is the first and most crucial step in underground mining. Although the previously used rock drilling rigs were technically mature, they relied heavily on personnel and required a large number of workers, making safety risk management difficult.

In recent years, MSW has invested nearly 40 million yuan in collaboration with domestic research institutions, universities, and equipment manufacturers to continuously develop technologies for the domestication, automation, and intelligence of large-scale mining machinery. A series of intelligent equipment, including automated anchor bolt rigs and unmanned intelligent mining trucks, have been put into operation.

The newly deployed intelligent rock drilling robots have overcome several technical challenges, such as millimeter-level precision positioning and high-accuracy scanning control error, joint loss and angle correction technologies. They have achieved a series of high-end technological breakthroughs in autonomous positioning, AI artificial intelligence, network communication, and autonomous scanning recognition.

According to the technical directorat MSW, the intelligent rock drilling robots enable one person to remotely control three or more drilling rigs simultaneously. Additionally, these robots have one-click start-stop and one-click intervention capabilities, significantly reducing the number of underground drilling and blasting personnel, lowering production costs, and improving mine safety levels.

"The development and application of intelligent rock drilling robots are another significant achievement in the technological innovation and new quality productivity of MSW ," said the deputy general manager of MSW. "Within this year, MSW will deploy intelligent rock drilling robots in all its mines."

A professor at Shandong University of Science and Technology stated that intelligent rock drilling robots and similar technologies break foreign technology monopolies and will make important contributions to the intelligent mining of metal and non-metal mines nationwide.