采煤机技术发展历程(六)——煤岩界面探测

The development history of coal shearer technology(Part six)——coal-rock interface detection

煤岩界面探测(CID)是采煤机实现少割岩、多割煤选择性开采的重要技术。20世纪60年代初,英国开始研发自动化采煤设备,首先研制出探测顶煤厚度的γ射线探测仪。随后的60多年里,CID一直被当作自动化采煤的关键技术,相关研究广泛开展,迄今已有数十种探测技术和算法。笔者认为,CID的目的是保证采煤机实现煤层边界仿形截割,应分为截割前、截割中、截割后3个探测时段,采用构造扫描探测、截割触觉探测、煤壁视觉探测3种方法,以满足采煤机截割路径导航、姿态实时调控、截割轨迹修正3个需求。目前,国内外主要有15种CID方法,可归纳为采前透视法、采中触觉法、采后视觉法。就当前技术水平而言,采前CID宜采用探地雷达技术,采中CID可用截割力和温升的融合感知方法,采后CID可用高光谱或激光探测技术。

Coal-rock interface detection(CID)is an important technology for shearer to realize the selective mining with less rock and more coal.In the early 1960s,the UK began to develop automatic coal mining equipment,and first developed a gamma-ray detector to detect the thickness of roof coal seam.In the following 60 years,CID technology had been the key technology of automatic coal mining,a wide range of researches had been carried out,and so far there were dozens of CID techniques and algorithms.In the author's opinion,the purpose of CID is to ensure shearer's imitation cutting along coal seam boundary,which can be applied at three stages,before cutting,during cutting and after cutting.In the three stages,structural scanning detection,cutting tactile recognition and coal wall visual recognition were adopted,respectively,to meet the three requirements of shearer cutting path navigation,real-time attitude control and cutting trajectory correction.At present,there are mainly 15 kinds of coal-rock interface detection methods at home and abroad,which can be summarized as pre-mining perspective method,mining tactile recognition method and post-mining visual method.On the basis of the current level of technology,ground penetrating radar could be used for pre-cutting detection,the fusion sensing method of cutting force and temperature rise could be applied as tactile recognition during cutting,and hyperspectral or laser detection technology is a potential method for post-cutting visual detection.