Patent ID: 11927097
Assignee: CATERPILLAR INC.
Field: Civil engineering (Other fields)
Classification: CPC E  H | IPC E

Claim 7:
8. A cable handling system for a longwall mining machine, the longwall mining machine including a shearer configured to move along a pan line to mine material along a mine face, the cable handling system comprising:
i) a service line configured to carry one or more supply lines to the shearer for facilitating shearer operation,
ii) a plurality of interconnected trays to accommodate the service line,
iii) a plurality of sensor nodes distributed along a length of the service line,
iv) a plurality of transceivers distributed along a length of the pan line, and
v) a controller configured to:
a) receive orientation, acceleration and/or position data of the service line that originates from the plurality of sensor nodes, is transmitted to the plurality of transceivers, and is then transmitted to the controller by the plurality of transceivers, and
b) analyse the orientation, acceleration and/or position data to detect an actual or imminent failure mode of the service line by at least comparing the orientation, acceleration and/or position data from a first subset of the plurality of the sensor nodes with the orientation, acceleration and/or position data from a second subset of the plurality of the sensor nodes.