BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Deep in a mine shaft over 700 meters underground, driverless monorail vehicles run back and forth around the clock. This has now become the norm at the Yuandian No. 1 Mine, an intelligent coal mine of Huaibei Mining Group in Anhui. Here, Chinese AI technology has seamlessly integrated with German locomotives, becoming the guardians of safety in mines.
In response to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, unmanned operations in high-risk underground environments have gradually become a reality in recent years, enhancing miners' sense of safety and happiness. This has become a goal for many industrial and mining enterprises, as well as technology companies in China, which are investing heavily in this regard. "AI+" has already become a frontier and hotspot for the safe production and technological development of Chinese mines.
As an international cooperation project in the field of underground driverless transportation in Chinese mines, monorail suspended cars of German company SMT Scharf GmbH, equipped with the driverless system independently developed by Hefei Gocom, use AI video recognition, precise positioning, radar and other technologies to achieve point-to-point automatic safe transportation. This addresses common industry problems such as low transportation efficiency, long waiting times and frequent accidents in underground monorail transport, exemplifying the joint innovation and win-win cooperation between Chinese and German enterprises.
The photo shows a driverless monorail vehicle working underground. (Provided by Hefei Gocom Information Technology Co., Ltd.)
Chinese and German Enterprises Pursuing Innovation for Smart Mines
In coal production, transportation is a crucial link. Since 2011, the Yuandian No. 1 Mine has introduced monorail vehicles from SMT Scharf, which holds a high market share globally.
These monorail cars boast strong climbing ability, large load capacity and high utilization of tunnel space, and can transport continuously in both flat and inclined tunnels without reloading. Over the past decade, they have gradually become the main equipment for auxiliary transportation in complex underground environments in Chinese mines.
However, with the rapid development of AI technology, monorail vehicles that still rely on manual operation and lack intelligent systems face safety issues, long scheduling wait times, abnormal operation, and human operation errors, thus limiting the improvement of underground transport efficiency. Such vehicles no longer meet China's real needs for building unmanned safe mines, making it urgent to upgrade and transform to driverless technology and equipment.
Driven by the urgent needs of coal mining enterprises, SMT Scharf and Hefei Gocom signed a strategic cooperation agreement in May 2023, embarking on a journey to deeply integrate Chinese AI technology with advanced German monorail vehicles.
Chinese and German teams discuss technical details at SMT Scharf's China subsidiary. (Provided by Hefei Gocom)
Striving for Solutions and Overcoming Challenges
After the project was officially implemented, Scharf's engineers requested that the equipment be completely independent of the original equipment, such as requiring an additional generator, a separate speed collection device, and electrical isolation for communication interfaces.
Hefei Gocom General Manager Cheng Yun'an responded clearly to the cautious attitude of the German side, "In our first cooperation, building trust takes time. We can do more work to show our utmost sincerity. Solutions always outnumber challenges. The most important thing is to ensure the success of this meaningful project."
After that, from equipment selection and compliance with safety standards to risk assessment and safety protection, the technical personnel of Hefei Gocom and the engineers from the German side conducted two months of testing and comparative verification and held dozens of exchanges on the project. They gradually dispelled the German side's concerns with actual results, moving the project toward a substantive direction.
In August 2023, technical personnel from both sides discussed technical details for the upgrading of the underground vehicles. Disagreement arose over the choice of the communication interface type.
The photo shows Hefei Gocom and SMT Scharf reach cooperation in May 2023. (Provided by Hefei Gocom)
The external communication interface of Scharf vehicles consists of a communication module called C2W. After field testing, it was found that the wireless signal reception distance of C2W was limited, causing intermittent communication between C2W and the onboard communication controller during vehicle operation, which is unacceptable in unmanned vehicle control.
Engineer Xing Xing said: "Our suggestion to the German side is to change the external communication interface to a CAN (C2C) bus interface. On one hand, CAN communication is currently the mainstream vehicle control interface method. On the other hand, because CAN communication is wired, full-duplex, stable and reliable and allows for high transmission speed, it is very suitable for driverless scenarios."
Initially, the German engineers rejected this suggestion. However, as the teams lived and worked on site, after continuous communication and experiments, the German side finally agreed to switch to the more effective CAN (C2C) bus interface.
At this point, Scharf Mining Machinery (Beijing) General Manager Holger Rusch raised a new issue: Hardware changes to the communication interface would require the product to undergo new coal safety certification (a necessary qualification for underground applications), which could take six months or even longer.
After careful consideration, Hefei Gocom decided to adopt a dual approach. On one hand, they would cooperate with Scharf in the technical docking for the communication interface change, including assisting the German side with coal safety certification. On the other hand, following the original timetable, Hefei Gocom's technical team installed a wireless communication device on the monorail vehicle to address the issue of C2W's insufficient signal reception, as an interim solution to complete the overall system function testing.
Win-Win Cooperation, Endless Opportunities
After the driverless monorail system was put into use, Hao Mingjing, a "master craftsman" of the Yuandian No. 1 Mine, said happily: "In the past, when we operated the monorail vehicles, we had to work in three shifts, and the underground environment was very dusty, especially in the summer when it was sweltering. Every day we were covered in sweat and dirt. Now, we don't have to go underground; we can control it remotely from the surface. The machines keep running while we rest, and the efficiency has improved."
Czech company Ferrit visits Hefei Gocom to seek cooperation. (Provided by Hefei Gocom)
With the new monorail system, each vehicle can reduce the number of underground workers needed per day by six. If all 300-plus monorail vehicles in Huaibei Mining achieve driverless operation, the annual reduction in underground workers could reach hundreds of thousands.
With significant social and economic benefits, the driverless monorail system quickly gained recognition in both domestic and international markets. In April 2024, SMT Scharf and Hefei Gocom once again joined hands to achieve driverless operations of underground vehicles at the Zhangji coal mine in Huainan.
The Zhangji coal mine project site operates in a closed communication network that is offline. To address the issue of the Scharf vehicle's onboard communication module requiring NTP time synchronization once turned on and to avoid affecting vehicle control, Hefei Gocom experts tried various methods. After repeated verification and testing, Chinese experts modified the functions of the onboard communication controller software, ultimately solving the problem.
Holger Rusch commented, "When we seek cooperation, we choose the strongest manufacturers in the transportation field. This collaboration has once again proven that we made the right choice."
The case of Sino-German cooperation has spread through the industry, attracting many monorail vehicle manufacturing companies from home and abroad to Hefei for technological exchanges with Gocom.
After achieving driverless monorail transportation, an integrated operation of "loading, transporting and unloading" can be realized in the mine, transforming the digitalization of underground transportation operations into an intelligent, unmanned mode. This will be supported by intelligent transportation equipment such as monorail vehicles, ground rail vehicles, trackless rubber-tired vehicles, ore loaders, and beam cranes, coordinated through a high-speed wireless communication platform in the mine.
The integration of AI and complex industrial scenarios in the mining industry will lead us toward a smarter and more sustainable future in industrial development. (Shao Li)
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