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

Claim 0:
1. A method of operating a cable handling system of a longwall mining machine having a shearer movable along a pan line to mine material along a mine face, the cable handling system including:
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, wherein the method comprises:
a) sensing and transmitting orientation, acceleration and/or position data of the service line using the plurality of sensor nodes,
b) using the plurality of transceivers to receive the orientation, acceleration and/or position data from the plurality of sensor nodes and to transmit the orientation, acceleration and/or position data to the controller, and
c) detecting, by the controller, an actual or imminent failure mode of the service line using analysis of the orientation, acceleration and/or position data from the plurality of the sensor nodes 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.