During the past one hundred years, mining techniques have shifted from highly laborious manual mining to fully automated operations. In every step, the advancement has been fueled by more advanced power sources, tools, sensors, and controls, resulting in lower human exposure to risky mining work. At the same time, production speed, accuracy, and uniformity have been increasing.
The initial mining practices in the 1900s involved manual labor, drilling holes, chiselling out pieces with a pickaxe, moving them to other places using shovels and timbering, and relying on animal labor or steam power. All of this meant that productivity was constrained by manpower, and the mechanization phase changed everything. The hydraulic drills, electric machinery, continuous miners, trucks, and shovels made mining possible at a greater depth and with greater efficiency.
However, the turning point has occurred during electrification, introduction of conveyor belts and advanced blasting technology. This development has made it possible for mining operations to become less physically demanding but at the same time, people still had to do the dangerous jobs close to the coal face or haulage area.
Since the 1960s, automation has started creeping in the form of unmanned trains, underground machinery controlled from a distance, and later on, load-and-haul machinery controlled from a distance as well. By the 1990s, remote operations evolved to include operations on the surface through which an operator was no longer required to be physically present in a mining vehicle but could operate it from a safer central point.
The new age brought another revolution in mining with sensors, wireless technology, GPS, data analysis, and human-machine interaction that made it possible for a company to monitor everything in its mining process on a fleet level. Now, the mining industry had evolved beyond mechanization to connectivity.
Autonomous mining is today’s frontier, whereby autonomous mining trucks, automated drilling technology, drones, robots, and intelligent control centers are able to perform much of the mining process without much human involvement. This leads to a safer, more efficient, and precise mine compared to the manual mines a hundred years ago. However, the process needs experts to guide the operation from the control room.
