This paper reports on an industrial application of modern signal processing technology in the development of a new automatic conveyor and bolting machine for underground coal mining. The machine is of special interest to the mining industry as it improves mine personnel safety as well as increasing the efficiency of roadway construction. We show how real-time signal processing component technol...

Ethernet has dominated due to the ease-of-use and open standard approach providing true interoperability between equipment in the field. By itself, Ethernet is not strictly a protocol yet it provides the lower ‘hardware’ layers for the higher layer software stacks such as TCP/IP or UDP. So, it would seem the task to network a device should be as simple as ‘bolting on’ an Ethernet transceiver an...

Underground coal mining is one of the most dangerous occupations. Years of effort have been dedicated to researching methods of characterizing mine roof and floor for improving the mining environment. This research investigates using a neural network to classify rock strata based on the physical parameters of a roof bolting drill. This paper presents our methodology, as well as early results ba...