“Automatically yielding to pedestrians, navigating around obstacles, maintaining a safe distance from the vehicle ahead, and handling complex and unexpected road conditions... In the ‘empty’ cab, the steering wheel turns by itself, and the accelerator and brakes are operated automatically.” This scene unfolded at the unmanned driving test site of the Caojiatan Coal Mine, Yubei Coal Industry. These “actions” that once required careful human driving can now be automatically controlled and completed by the mine-specific autonomous driving system developed by the Changzhou Research Institute of China National Coal Science and Technology Group.
　　Technology is publicly listed, and the project “takes shape.”
　　In recent years, autonomous driving technology has continuously achieved new breakthroughs in many regions around the world. In contrast, due to complex factors such as the absence of satellite positioning signals underground in coal mines, limited visibility at intersections, explosive environments, high dust levels, and a pronounced "corridor effect," the technological development of autonomous mining vehicles faces higher requirements and greater implementation challenges.
　　To this end, the Changzhou Research Institute of China Coal Science and Technology has issued a technical challenge list internally within the company, inviting teams to tackle the core technologies behind autonomous driving. Comrade Zhou Libing, deputy director of the R&D center, carefully analyzed the current status of autonomous driving in underground coal mines and conducted a multi-dimensional assessment of this technology. After deliberation among team members, they decided to "accept the challenge."
　　After successfully “taking on the challenge,” he led his team to delve deeply into research and reflection around the established goals and tasks, devising detailed measures and plans and meticulously planning the project schedule in a scientific and thorough manner. After more than a year of collaborative efforts, they finally overcame key technical challenges in the core areas of underground vehicle networking and autonomous driving, achieving the first-ever domestic implementation of an underground vehicle networking and autonomous driving system in a coal mine. On the driverless rubber-tired vehicles operating underground at the Caojiatan Coal Mine, all operational data have met the requirements for routine operation; when driven autonomously, these vehicles can reach speeds of up to 22 km/h. As of now, the total safe operating mileage of these driverless vehicles underground has exceeded 2,000 kilometers. The project’s achievements have been evaluated by experts from the China National Coal Association and certified as being “at an internationally advanced level.”
　　Precise positioning—maps “come to life”
　　Addressing the challenge of using conventional satellite-based navigation technologies—commonly employed in ground-level autonomous driving—in the confined underground environment, the team has developed an intelligent roadside unit specifically for mining applications. Paired with a self-developed, mine-specific, semantic-level high-precision map and equipped with a “satellite-like” positioning system based on UWB identification tags, this solution enables highly accurate, dynamic positioning of high-speed vehicles operating underground. As a result, vehicles can now navigate confidently and park precisely underground without ever getting lost.
　　Smart sensing makes eyes “brighten” up.
　　The intelligent sensing system functions as the human eye, responsible for perceiving the surrounding environment. Faced with harsh underground conditions such as low illumination and high dust levels, the team has overcome the limitations of specialized underground operating environments and the sensing capabilities of individual sensor types. They have developed a full range of intrinsically safe mining sensors—including 16-line LiDAR, millimeter-wave radar, ultrasonic radar, and high-definition cameras—and have also created multi-sensor target detection fusion algorithms tailored for underground applications. These advancements have significantly enhanced the accuracy and environmental adaptability of the sensing system, enabling 360-degree, blind-spot-free perception—making it possible to "see more clearly" than ever before.
　　5G empowers vehicles and roads to “connect” with each other.
　　“Smart” vehicles also require “smart” roads to support them. The team has developed an underground distributed vehicle-road cooperative edge computing system based on a “5G + real-time remote control platform,” which establishes a high-capacity data-sharing and interaction channel for cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) networks characterized by low latency, high bandwidth, and high reliability. This system not only resolves the conflict between the power consumption limitations of intrinsically safe equipment underground and the high computational demands and power consumption of autonomous driving but also significantly enhances the vehicles’ ability to perceive beyond line-of-sight and in blind spots, enabling “smart” roads to support “intelligent” vehicles. By integrating and distributing computing resources across both the vehicle end and the edge side, the system greatly improves the flexibility of computing resource allocation while reducing system costs. It meets the requirements of comprehensive interactive functions for underground autonomous driving, including fleet scheduling, emergency remote intervention, and more—thereby boosting safety redundancy and transportation efficiency, making “unmanned driving safer than ever.”
　　The Changzhou Research Institute of China Coal Science and Technology will continue to firmly implement the Group’s “1245” overall development strategy, make good use of the “listing-and-headhunting” mechanism, further unleash the innovative potential of its researchers, accelerate breakthroughs in key core technologies, and sprint vigorously on the new track of digitalization, thereby contributing scientific and technological strength to the realization of fully unmanned operations in mines and the construction of smart mines. (Xinhua Net)