Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Autonomous Shuttle Car Docking To A Continuous Miner Using Rgb-Depth Imagery, Sky Rose

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

A great deal of research is currently being conducted in automating mining equipment to improve worker health and safety and increase mine productivity. Significant progress has been made in some applications, e.g., autonomous haul trucks for surface mining. However, little progress has been made in autonomous face haulage in underground room-and pillar coal mines. Accordingly, this thesis addresses automating the operation of a shuttle car, focusing on positioning the shuttle car under the continuous miner coal-discharge conveyor during cutting and loading operations. The approach uses a stereo depth camera as the sensor, and machine-learning algorithms are used to identify various …