No more Miners

Underground coal mining is a cooperative enterprise of powerful mobile equipment and the people who operate it. If mining equipment could be automated, the mining industry could enhance productivity, access unworlcable mineral seams, and reduce human exposure to the dangerous underground mine environment. This is a robotic miner, it can maneuver in highly constrained environments and cut coal without a human operator onboard. The system consists of a modified continuous miner, a laser range sensor, a SPARCstation, and control software. To date, the system has been tested in a real coal mine. This robot is the first instance of an intelligent robotic system for cutting coal.