With the continuous and powerful supply of policies, the current Internet of Things technology is accelerating the empowerment of thousands of industries in the national economy through the integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation, and is deeply integrated into all aspects of social development.
Recently, nine departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Central Cyberspace Administration, and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the “Action Plan for Promoting Innovation and Development of the Internet of Things Industry (2026-2028)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Action Plan”), which clearly stated that through a number of specific measures such as cultivating Internet of Things application scenarios, we will further accelerate the comprehensive integration of Internet of Things technology into all fields of production, consumption, and social governance, and promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy.
The implementation of this “Action Plan” will accelerate the process of digital intelligence in various industries, including mining, and accelerate the transformation of the mining industry.
As a representative of the new generation of information technology, the Internet of Things is based on perception technology and aims to achieve ubiquitous intelligent connection of people, machines and things through communication networks, thereby opening up the digital world and the physical world.
In recent years, the mutual empowerment and integrated development of new technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and big data have driven society from “Internet of Everything” to “Ubiquitous Intelligence” and become an important starting point for cultivating new productivity.
Under the wave of digitalization and intelligence, traditional mining has also kept pace with the times, actively embraced new technologies, and accelerated its own transformation and upgrading.
As early as 2021, China Energy Group and Huawei Technologies Co. jointly released the first Internet of Things operating system in the mining field – “Kanghong Operating System”. Through “soft bus” technology, different equipment is interconnected to promote the intelligentization and less-manned mine excavation system, the continuity and efficiency of the auxiliary transportation system, and the remote ground control of electromechanical equipment, assisting the digital and intelligent transformation of the mining industry.
In this technological revolution, mining companies such as Zijin Mining, Shandong Gold Group, Baowu Group, and Jinchuan Group also took early action to promote innovation in mining production methods and operating models through the integration and empowerment of technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing.
It should be noted that in recent years, with the continuous emergence of new technologies, new products, and new models, the Internet of Things industry has shown a trend of vigorous development. However, there are also problems and challenges such as some key core technologies that are controlled by others, different terminal devices cannot be interconnected, and network and data security risks have intensified.
For mines, intelligence is essentially the industrial Internet, which requires hierarchical decoupling, platform sharing, capability co-construction, and ecological prosperity. It is necessary to build a unified architecture of the industrial Internet platform and build a mine digital twin in the digital world, so as to realize faster and more extensive use of industry knowledge and scene experience.
The application of IoT technology in mines not only involves information infrastructure construction, geological support systems, excavation systems, mid-mining systems, transportation systems, sorting systems, safety systems, etc., but also requires interconnection and intelligence between all levels, and industry adaptation is achieved through the formulation of industry interfaces and protocol standards.
This “Action Plan” aims to solve the deep-seated problems that restrict industrial development, use key technological innovation as a breakthrough, and use scenario application promotion as a traction to create a new infrastructure for the Internet of Things with global awareness, ubiquitous intelligent connectivity, multi-network integration, security and trustworthiness, and provide solid support for accelerating the advancement of new industrialization.
It is mentioned that for the industrial field, the application of Internet of Things technology will be promoted in all aspects, and scenario applications will be deepened around key areas such as energy, resources and environment.
The innovative development of the Internet of Things industry is bound to reshape the mining industry model and bring many benefits to the intelligent, green, and integrated development of the mining industry.
On the one hand, the level of mining safety is expected to achieve a leap-forward improvement with the support of Internet of Things technology.
As prospecting and mining gradually advance to deeper areas, complex environments such as high temperature, high pressure and high stress have brought greater challenges to safe operations, and uncertain factors such as rock bursts and water inflows have also increased.
Internet of Things technology can build an all-round, all-weather safety monitoring network in mines to achieve precise positioning of personnel, dynamic perception of the environment, and linked emergency response.
Especially with breakthroughs in key technologies of sensing equipment, its self-calibration, anti-interference, and real-time monitoring capabilities in complex environments will be significantly enhanced.
Coupled with the optimization and upgrading of application terminals and the improvement of network equipment connection capabilities, the in-depth application of IoT technology in the mining field can not only reduce the number of people and replace people in dangerous underground operations, but also comprehensively improve the intrinsic safety level of my country’s mines, bringing prospecting and mining to a new stage of remote control, intelligence and even unmanned operations.
On the other hand, mine production efficiency will achieve significant breakthroughs enabled by the integration of IoT technology.
Through real-time data collection and intelligent analysis, IoT technology will optimize or even subvert the original production and operation model of mines: based on sensors and big data analysis, real-time monitoring of equipment status and fault prediction can be achieved, shifting from “passive maintenance” to “predictive maintenance”, reducing unplanned downtime; in the transportation link, combining 5G and IoT technology to build an unmanned mine.
Human-driven mining truck clusters can realize remote dispatching, precise docking and autonomous obstacle avoidance, improving operating efficiency in special environments; by deepening the integration of new technologies such as the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, the level of intelligent perception and efficient collaboration in the entire mining production process will be improved, and the mining recovery rate, mineral processing recovery rate and comprehensive utilization rate will be greatly improved, helping the mining industry to improve quality, reduce costs and increase efficiency.
In addition, the green and low-carbon development of mining will be more vigorous with the application of Internet of Things technology.
The in-depth application of IoT technology in energy management and control, environmental monitoring and other scenarios will give birth to the “solution + product + service” application model and promote the formation of a number of industry solutions with large-scale promotion value.
Intelligent energy management and control can regulate the load of high energy-consuming equipment and use peak and valley electricity price policies to reduce energy consumption costs; online environmental monitoring can realize continuous monitoring and automatic suppression of groundwater levels, dust, and noise; full-process management optimizes all aspects of the mineral processing plant through sensor networks to achieve recycling of mineral processing wastewater and efficient recovery of slag.
Of course, the impact of the innovative development of the Internet of Things industry on the transformation and upgrading of the mining industry goes far beyond this, and will be comprehensive and far-reaching.
With the deep integration of the Internet of Things and new generation information technologies such as artificial intelligence, satellite remote sensing, human-computer interaction, and cloud computing, traditional mining will usher in more profound industrial changes and value reshaping with continued empowerment. New momentum will continue to emerge, and new productivity will be cultivated at an accelerated pace.
