Underground mine energy management system

Abstract

An underground mine energy management system includes wireless nodes located at different 3D coordinate positions along travel paths throughout an underground mine, and energy zones are defined between respective pairs of the wireless nodes. A controller is programmed to communicate with a central control office for the mine, a plurality of electric mining vehicles, a plurality of energy storage devices, and a plurality of charging stations operating within the mine, receive data indicative of an energy utilization profile for each of the electric mining vehicles traversing each of the energy zones in one of a loaded or unloaded condition, and an energy storage profile for each of the energy storage devices available to be installed on an associated electric mining vehicle traversing each of the energy zones, determine productivity goals, missions, and prioritized tasks to be performed by each of the electric mining vehicles and each of the energy storage devices, pair each electric mining vehicle with at least one energy storage device based on a determined mission or prioritized task, and generate travel paths made up of a sequence of the energy zones for the paired electric mining vehicles and energy storage devices to complete the determined mission or prioritized task.