Background Intelligent drilling rigs in coal mines is a critical equipment underpinning the safe and efficient exploitation of coal resources and the intelligent transformation of mining operations.

Progress  This paper systematically reviews the evolution of this technology in China from the “13th Five-Year Plan” to the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, categorizing its development into three distinct stages. In the semi-automatic stage, breakthroughs in remote control and automatic drill pipe handling technologies were achieved, realizing man-machine separation and safe operation, and improving drilling efficiency by approximately 25% over manual operations. The full-process automation stage is currently making breakthroughs in adaptive drilling and autonomous decision-making algorithms, enabling the rig to dynamically adjust drilling strategies based on real-time geological information. Meanwhile, it has connected the closed-loop processes of drilling, slag removal, screen pipe installation and grouting, realizing one-button start-stop automated operation through multi-machine cooperative control, and reducing auxiliary operation time to below 20%. The early intelligent stage is attempting to introduce surface remote centralized control and precise directional steering technologies, endowing the rig with preliminary “perception-analysis-decision” capabilities, increasing the target-layer penetration rate to over 90% and controlling trajectory deviation to within 1 m. Despite notable progress, the transition toward higher-level intelligence still faces challenges such as insufficient accuracy in geological modeling, limited adaptability of intelligent algorithms, low reliability of core components, and barriers in data interconnectivity.

Prospects  Future developments are expected to seek breakthroughs in key areas such as transparent geology modeling, deep integration of AI algorithms, and standardization of technical protocols. The technology will continue to evolve toward system-level autonomous decision-making, unmanned operations via robotic drilling clusters, and electric drive-based digital execution, thereby providing crucial technical support for the high-quality and sustainable development of the coal industry.