Ultra-wideband radar for robust inspection drone in underground coal mines

Coal mines pose a high safety risk for human workers. An autonomous inspection drone would enable a coal mine operation to reduce this risk by minimizing the time spent by workers inside the mine. This inspection drone must be highly robust to the harsh environment of an underground coal mine, with high levels of coal dust and humidity that can obstruct many conventional sensing methods. For high functionality, the drone must sense and avoid potential obstacles and as well as inspect and map the mining wall face. The objective of this paper is to present ultra-wideband (UWB) radar as a robust sensing solution to this challenging environment and validate its performance in the typical coal mine environment, both statically and dynamically.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Cunha, Fernando F

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kamal Youcef-Toumi.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/113765

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/113765