Wireless Communication in Underground Mining Teleoperation: A Systematic Review

The mining industry is undergoing a transformational shift driven by automation and digitalization, enabling the teleoperation of machinery, improving safety, and enhancing operational efficiency in challenging underground environments. However, achieving safe and efficient teleoperation requires meeting stringent wireless communication requirements for low latency and high throughput. There is no unified consensus on the communication requirements or the most suitable technologies for different teleoperation modes, such as remote driving, assistance, and monitoring. This paper systematically reviews the literature on wireless communication challenges for underground mining teleoperation, identifying open research problems, proposed solutions, and key findings. The included studies are categorized into six thematic research areas, with teleoperation modes mapped to different levels of automation. Additionally, studies characterizing radio wave propagation in underground mine environments and evaluating various communication technologies are analyzed to define communication requirements in terms of deadlines, reliability, latency, and data rate for different teleoperation modes. The performance metrics used in the reviewed studies are also defined and attributed to the six thematic research areas. The findings of this systematic review highlight Wi-Fi, LTE, and 5G as the prevailing technologies for underground mine teleoperation. Moreover, the identified research gaps underscore the need for further research on handling communication outages, achieving low latency and high throughput for improved QoS, hybrid communication technologies, enabling a higher level of autonomy, and designing communication solutions tailored to specific teleoperation scenarios.