Positioning System for the Roadheader based on UWB-IMU

To enhance the efficiency and promote green mining in coal extraction, while advancing intelligent and unmanned operations for coal mining equipment, achieving breakthroughs in key intelligent technologies for the roadheader—a critical piece of mining equipment—becomes particularly essential. Regarding the concept of "green mining" in this context, it refers to reducing environmental impact by improving the precision and efficiency of equipment operations, thereby minimizing unnecessary energy consumption and resource waste. In underground tunnels, the Ultra-Wide Band and Inertial Measurement Unit systems commonly used for roadheader positioning each have distinct strengths and limitations. To address significant roll and pitch errors due to multipath and non-line-of-sight issues, as well as the low positioning accuracy resulting from IMU heading drift, this study proposes a positioning fusion method based on Time of Arrival that combines UWB and IMU data. By leveraging the high-precision roll and pitch angles obtained from the IMU, this approach aims to refine the UWB-calculated positioning results. To investigate the feasibility of this fusion method, experiments were conducted on the forward and backward movements of a boom-type roadheader within a simulated tunnel environment. Additionally, using a total station, the global coordinate system was established by measuring the distances between four UWB base stations and four UWB tags. Using the Newton iteration method, the roadheader’s pose was directly calculated, with attitude updates achieved by incorporating the changes in IMU- derived roll and pitch angles. Experimental results indicate that the fusion of IMU roll and pitch angle increments into UWB- based positioning systems significantly enhances positioning accuracy. This study’s positioning fusion method contributes to green mining by ensuring more accurate and stable positioning of roadheaders, which in turn supports precise, efficient tunneling and resource extraction.