The funding package will enable CSIRO Exploration & Mining to undertake nine research projects.

CSIRO research leader Dr Hua Guo said the new projects will cover a range of issues that industry had identified as a current concern.

“One major project will develop navigation and automation systems for an underground continuous miner, a type of new, self-steering, remotely supervised mining equipment that will improve both safety and efficiency,” Guo said.

“It is a natural progression from our previous longwall automation work and we are very excited about it.”

Other projects will include improving dust control on longwalls, designing and building an intrinsically safe geophone for underground coal mining, reducing diesel exhaust emissions underground, estimating pit wall strength, reducing or eliminating dust in draglines, and measuring the performance of low-density explosives for open-cut mining.

Environmental projects will include improving gas drainage while reducing coal mine greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing the effect of longwall mining on groundwater systems.

“This new funding extends a long and successful history of collaboration between the industry and CSIRO to develop safer and more efficient technologies, such as the Longwall Automation project that has now moved from demonstration to commercialisation,” ACARP executive director Mark Bennetts said.