The VR Era of Underground Mining

By Zhang Qian & Qiu Tianxing

When we think about mining, we imagine dangerous mines, large amounts of waste water, and unkempt miners.

In Zhangcunping Town, Yiling District of Yichang City, the location of the second largest phosphate mine—Tiaoshuihe Phosphate in Asia and the mainstream of Huangbai River which is the first-level tributary of the Yangtze River, you will see a mining site where clear creeks flow and beautiful flowers bloom in the mountains. Here, the operators control the whole process of mining via VR and no traces of a typical stope can be found.

VR-Controlled Mining

We drove along the winding road on the mountain for 3 hours and arrived at the mining area of Hubei Sanning Mining Company. What jumped into our sight were rolling ranges of hills, babbling crystal water, green grasses, and blossoming flowers. “Our production line is divided into two parts: the above-ground control system and the underground operation zone. First we drill holes on the rock wall with a rock drilling rig, then we load and blast the explosives. After all that, the ore is transported to the processing field via conveyor belt for AI screening. Rich ore is transported away while goafs and tailings are back-filled.” Li Yong, the deputy general manager of Sanning Mining Company, was very proud as he told us about the process. He specifically emphasized that drilling, blasting, ventilation, and backfilling are all operated by workers above the ground, who operate VR technology to control the machines that do the tough work underground.

地下采礦VR時代

文/張茜 邱天星

說起采礦，總讓人聯想到危險的礦井、大量的廢水和蓬頭垢面的礦工。

在亞洲第二大磷礦、長江一級支流黃柏河源頭——宜昌市夷陵區樟村坪鎮，一處采礦點卻是這樣的景象：山澗流水潺潺、鮮花盛開，調度人員用VR管控著采礦流程，完全感覺不出這里是正在采礦的礦山。

VR指揮采礦

我們沿著盤山公路驅車3小時，到達湖北三寧礦業公司礦區，映入眼簾的是層巒高山、潺潺流水和綠草鮮花。“生產線分地面指揮和井下操作兩部分，首先通過鑿巖臺車在巖壁上打眼，裝藥爆破，礦石通過傳送帶送至選礦場智能篩選，富礦裝車運走，廢礦尾礦回填山體。”介紹流程的時候，三寧礦業副總經理李勇一臉自豪。他特意強調，鉆孔、裝藥爆破、通風、裝巖等都由調度人員在井上通過VR遙控指揮或通過操作井下機器完成。

VR, short for virtual reality, a technology that has become especially popular in recent years, works through VR software, which creates a three-dimensional space that simulates the real scene. The control personnel feel like they are on location and command the operation accordingly and accurately. When we entered the hall of the control center, the first thing we saw was a giant display screen, along with 32 small screens showing realtime scenes of the entire mining area. In the middle there was a three-dimensional panorama of the mining area, which clearly and holistically showed real-time data, ranging from equipment operations in each area and personnel activities to the movement of wind, water, and electricity. Li Yong said that this is the “brain” of the entire mining area.

An operator was operating two devices similar to a video game controller, while a yellow robotic arm was shown on the computer screen. “This is a mechanical breaker, now working in the underground roadway 6 kilometers away.” Li Yong said that it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to transport large ore onto the ground, and that this process also causes pollution. Underground work can solve all of these problems. Wang Xueliang, the general manager of Sanning Mining, told us that this platform integrates multiple functions, including production control, communication management, environment monitoring, and safety supervision.

VR，近年來大熱的虛擬現實技術，通過軟件虛擬現實，產生三維空間，讓操控人員身臨其境，精確指揮操作。走進調度指揮中心大廳，迎面是一面墻的巨型顯示屏，32個小窗口展示著整個礦區的實時景象。中間是礦區三維全景圖，各區域設備運行、人員活動、風水電等實時數據一目了然。李勇說，這里是整個礦區的“大腦”。

一名工作人員操縱著兩個類似游戲手柄的設備，電腦屏幕里顯示的是一個黃色機械臂。“這是機械破碎錘，正在6公里遠的井下巷道作業。”李勇說，大塊礦石運到地面破碎耗費人力物力，還容易造成污染，井下破碎這些問題都不存在了。三寧礦業總經理王學梁介紹，這一平臺集生產控制、通信集成、安環監測與監控等功能于一體。

井下沒幾人

綠色智能的礦井里，是一番什么景象？

從海拔1300米的山上下到地下400米深的礦洞，工作人員既不靠雙腳走，也不坐傳統的猴車，而是乘汽車。

穿戴好工作服、長筒膠鞋、安全帽，門禁自動識別帽子上的電子信息牌后自動打開。登上停在斜坡道上的一輛汽車，我們開始了一趟奇幻的地下旅程。

Few Workers Underground

What does a green and intelligent mine look like?

Instead of walking or taking the traditional tramway, workers here travel by car, from the 1300-meterhigh mountain to the 400-meterdeep underground mine.

Having put on work uniforms, long rubber shoes, and hard hats, we saw the door open automatically after it identified the information cards on our hats. We got on a car parked on the ramp and started a fantastic underground journey.

The mine road was more spacious than expected, with a car park every 50 meters. An electronic rolling shutter door along our way sensed our car coming and automatically opened up. “The electronic door has sensors and acts automatically. Meanwhile it also collects real time data and uploads it to the VR platform,” Li Yong told us, having joined us on our trip down to the mine.

Rock drilling rig excavating 先進的鑿巖臺車實施采掘作業

There are no wind drillers, reinforcement workers, or scaling workers in the main operating area underground. Hydraulic rigs are used for drilling, followed by bolting jumbos for reinforcement, then machines for removing any unstable slabs of rock. According to Bian Fenglei, the captain of the machine mining team, the drilling rig can drill a hole as deep as 3.5 meters in one minute, which means one drilling rig can do 60 drill workers’ jobs.

In the secondary crushing area, the two yellow mechanical breakers we saw on the screen in the above-ground control center were working on their own in the empty mine. Going forward to the second back-filling station, we saw nobody there either, just a large set of equipment connected to long pipes, extending into another tunnel.

We walked to the back-filling area and saw one tunnel after another, each measuring 6 meters with their walls cast by cement. “This is the ‘exclusive technique’ of Sanning Mining. We construct a heavy-media seperation plant and tailing-cementing backfill station at the entrance of the excavation, where goafs and tailings are mixed into cement and transported back to the underground well, back-filling the stope in the areas where mining is finished,” Li Yong said. “In this way, we solved the problem of tailings stacking and also protected the mountain effectively.”

Remote-controlled large-diameter ore crushing 遠程遙控大塊徑礦石破碎

礦道比預想的寬敞，每隔50米還建有會車處。沿途有一扇扇卷簾電子風門，感應到車輛后會自動升起，“電子風門靠傳感器自動感應，并實時采集數據上傳到VR平臺。”一起下礦井的李勇介紹。

井下主要采礦作業面已沒有風鉆工、支護工、撬毛工，全液壓的鑿巖臺車打炮眼，錨桿臺車跟進支護、撬毛機撬掉松動的毛石。機采隊長卞鋒雷說，鑿巖臺車一分鐘就能打成一個深度為3.5米的炮眼，一輛鑿巖臺車頂得上60個風鉆工。

來到二級破碎處，在地面指揮中心屏幕里看到的黃色機械破碎錘映入眼簾，空無一人的礦道里，兩個機械破碎錘“默默地”工作著。繼續往前，來到充填二級泵站，同樣沒有人，一組大型設備連接著長長的管道，向旁邊一個礦道里延伸。

步行到充填區，一個一個的“隧道”，間距6米，洞壁為水泥澆鑄。“這就是三寧礦業的‘絕活’，在坑口配套建設重介質選礦廠和尾礦膠結充填站，廢礦尾礦攪拌成水泥，被輸送回井下，填充完成開采的山體。”李勇說，這樣既徹底解決了尾礦堆放難題，也有效保護了山體。

我們在井下只見到4名工作人員，一人操作鑿巖臺車、兩人安全巡視，一人開運輸車。李勇說，以前，如此規模的礦山至少要1000人才能運轉，現在只有200多人，還包括管理、后勤人員，真正下礦井的工作人員非常少，“無人采礦”正在變成現實。

環保開采

“晴天一片灰，雨天一路泥，遠觀像大霧，近看滿身土”是傳統礦區的真實寫照，越來越多的年輕人遠離這個行業。王學梁介紹，在采礦方法上三寧礦業一改傳統開采的老路，近幾年投入巨資新建井下一流節能、環保機電系統、井下礦石破碎裝車系統、井下PLC膠帶運輸系統、智能通風系統、井下無線通信。集機械化、自動化、信息化、數字化為一體，三寧礦業的誕生具有非同一般的開創性意義，是全國的標桿。

高新技術開采也吸引了高素質人才。三寧礦業的操作隊伍以80后、90后為主，下井作業的技術員學歷最高是研究生，大部分是大學生，也不再是傳統意義上的礦工了。

當今的中國，資源綠色開采、下游產品深加工、廢棄資源綠色處理和綜合利用已經成為磷化工行業發展的趨勢，傳統磷礦企業正向這一目標轉型。

VR Control Center—Mine Area Dispatch and Command Center VR管控中樞——礦區調度指揮中心

We only saw four workers underground, one operating the rock drilling rig, two doing safety patroling, and the fourth driving the transporting vehicle. Li Yong said that in the past, a mine of this size had to be operated by at least 1,000 people, while nowadays, including management and logistics personnel, there are only 200 people or so. Very few workers need to actually go underground, and “unmanned mining” is becoming a reality.

Environment-Friendly Mining

As an old saying goes, the traditional stope looks “dusty in a sunny day, muddy in a rainy day, foggy seen from afar, and soil you all over when you look closer.” More and more young people are staying away from the industry. Wang Xueliang said, Sanning Mining has discarded the old traditional way of mining. In recent years, they have invested a lot in building a new underground, energysaving, environment-friendly electro-mechanical system, underground ore crushing and loading system, underground PLC tape transportation system, intelligent ventilation system, and underground wireless communication. The birth of Sanning Mining has an extraordinary pioneering significance and has become the national role model, since it integrates mechanization, automation, intelligent technology and digitization.

High-tech mining has also attracted high-quality talents. The operation team of Sanning Mining is mainly composed of young people born in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of these technicians working underground receive post-graduation education, and most of them are college graduates. They are no longer the stereotypical miners of the past.

In today’s China, green mining of resources, deep processing of downstream products, green treatment of waste resources and comprehensive utilization have become the main trends of the phosphorus chemical industry, towards which the traditional phosphate enterprises are transforming themselves. (Translation: Lu Qiongyao)