According to statistics, China's mining industry has become the world's largest in scale, with the total output value of the industry accounting for 7% of the GDP in 2018. China currently has around 28,000 mines, including roughly 4,000 coal mines and 12,000 metal mines. The large number of mines highlights the significant challenges involved in mining and underscores the urgent need for transformation towards green, intelligent, clean, and low-carbon development.

China's mining industry officially entered the 5G era in June 2019, with the completion of the world's first underground 5G network at the Xinyuan Coal Mine of the Lu'an Chemical Group. The network extends 534 meters deep into the mine and features 150 underground base stations. 2023 is a crucial year for the continued deepening of 5G adoption in mining scenarios.

Recently, in order to better address the digital transformation needs of the mining industry with 5G, the Organizing Committee of the World 5G Convention held a symposium in Beijing, inviting multiple academicians, and relevant officials from operators, ICT companies, and typical mining enterprises, to discuss the development of smart mines empowered by 5G.

Fu Jun, Deputy Secretary-General of FuTURE FORUM, stated that mines have always been a significant and valuable area for the application of 5G technology. The 5G and Smart Mine Forum, held at the World 5G Convention in August 2022, received wide attention. Many excellent mining cases emerged from the 5G Fusion Application Design Competition and the Top 10 5G Application Cases evaluation. However, although 5G is "usable" in the mining industry, there is a need for further research to identify whether it is easy to use, effective and durable, and whether it can create a comprehensive network platform for smart mines. As a result, the 2023 World 5G Convention will continue to feature a sub-forum—5G and Smart Mine Forum, where even more experts and industry representatives will be invited to share their experiences and build consensus.

Yue Xin, Chief Economist of the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Heilongjiang Province, highlighted that in recent years, there have been several successful examples of mining companies in Heilongjiang undergoing digital transformation. For instance, the Dongshan Coal Mine and Chengshan Coal Mine in Jixi have deployed a 5G+MEC private network to implement intelligent systems such as high-definition video monitoring of underground environments and remote control of underground inspections. Meanwhile, China Minmetals Graphite Industry Co., Ltd. (Heilongjiang) has built production monitoring and intelligent scheduling management systems based on 5G networks, and has implemented applications such as 5G unmanned mining trucks and 5G+machine vision quality inspection, reducing labor costs by nearly 5 million yuan annually and enhancing safety measures for mining. Yue Xin pointed out that promoting the integration of the new generation of information technology represented by 5G with the real economy is of great significance for empowering the green and safe development of the mining industry, enabling enterprises to reduce costs, improve quality, and increase efficiency.

Ge Shirong, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and President of China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), emphasized that there are currently 18,000 open-pit and shaft mines in China, and if 50% of them are equipped with 5G, the market potential could reach a scale of 400 billion yuan. However, the premise is that 5G can truly meet the needs of monitoring, patrol inspection, communication, massive data transmission, remote control, as well as accurate positioning of people and equipment in mine scenarios. This requires collaboration between industry chain enterprises such as operators, ICT solution providers, and mining enterprises. To better apply 5G to mining scenarios, these companies must work together to unify relevant technical specifications, increase the transmitting power of 5G base stations, solve normal operation problems in core scenarios, and improve multi-source data interaction capabilities.

Wu Hequan, Academician of CAE and President of FuTURE FORUM, also highlighted the pain points of 5G applications in mines based on the security requirements and transmission challenges of mine scenarios. These include the lack of standardized industry solutions, the challenge posed by the harsh wireless transmission environment of mine shafts which affects 5G's performance, and the need for industrial chain enterprises to develop 5G base stations and terminals suitable for low frequency bands to achieve effective underground transmission. Wu Hequan stressed that the 5G industrial Internet technology system can be used in mine scenarios, while innovative 5G technologies need to truly adapt to the needs of mines.

Zhang Xinsheng, Executive Vice President of FuTURE FORUM, mentioned the progress of smart mines in the past two years. He concluded that work safety in industrial sites was one of the biggest problems faced by the mining industry, and accomplishing 5G+AI can greatly improve safety. Deploying 5G-enabled video systems in intelligent mining can enable remote operations, while using video with AI, remote monitoring equipment and real-time detection of violations can also reduce manpower and improve site security. In terms of 5G standards, R16 to R18 are still in development and will gradually meet more digital needs of industrial sites.

In recent years, 5G has been "usable" in the mining field, but whether it has proven to be "easy to use" and "durable" is still up for debate, as mining companies have direct experience with these technologies.

Experts from several domestic mining enterprises such as Longmay Mining Group Co., Ltd., CHN Energy Shendong Coal Group Co., Ltd. and Xinyuan Coal Co., Ltd. introduced some breakthroughs and innovations in the application of 5G to mine scenarios. They also highlighted issues such as the complex operation and maintenance of 5G networks, the limited performance of 5G in complex underground environments, fewer applications of 5G in mining work and transportation scenarios, insufficient development of customized 5G modules, and incomplete integration between industrial ring network and 5G network due to security concerns.

Senior experts from China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, as well as ICT solution providers such as Huawei, ZTE and China Information Communication Technologies Group Corporation (CICT), and heads of the Mine Corps introduced the progress in 5G+ mines and their understanding of mine digitalization needs respectively.

Considering the performance, security and energy consumption requirements of mine scenarios, operators and ICT enterprises have continuously explored terminal, network, cloudification control, cloud-edge collaboration and AI introduction in recent years. However, as the operator experts admitted, in recent years, although they have accumulated a lot of experience and made some breakthroughs in the construction of mine/underground 5G networks, 5G mines are now facing a critical period of unmanned and intelligent transformation. Therefore, 5G mines need to transform from pilot projects to full-scale operations.

To address the above problems, Ge Shirong and Wu Hequan, Academicians of CAE unanimously suggested that operators, ICT enterprises and mining enterprises should establish an information exchange platform through cooperation projects and other means to fully communicate and exchange ideas, so as to transform 5G+ mines from demonstration projects into normal projects. This would truly improve the normalization rate of intelligent operation in coal/non-coal mine scenarios and comprehensively promote the development of smart mines.