Anti- punching drilling robot (APDR) is the key equipment for underground rock burst relief in coal mine and the accurate position and attitude determination is the basis and premise for realizing unmanned pressure relief operation. In this paper, a novel positioning method of APDR based on spatial array inertial measurement units (IMUs) and visual image is proposed. Firstly, the spatial array layout of multiple IMUs is displayed creatively, and the data fusion model and the position and attitude calculation process of spatial array IMUs are established and designed. Through the motion trajectory simulation analysis and mobile carrier simulation experiment, it is verified that the position and attitude calculation accuracy of the spatial array IMUs are superior to the existing methods. Aiming at the problems of atomization, glare, uneven illumination and noise interference in coal mine images, an image enhancement method (SSR-AF) is designed to improve the accuracy of image feature extraction and matching. Accordingly, the positioning estimation model based on continuous frame images is established, and the fusion positioning process of APDR is designed by using the loose coupling mode based on Kalman filtering algorithm. The position and attitude monitoring experimental platform of APDR is built in a simulated coal mine tunnel and the experimental data are compared and analyzed. The experimental results indicate that with the help of visual positioning correction, the average absolute errors of displacement calculated by the spatial array IMUs in three axial directions are 0.0361m, 0.0284m and 0.0182m, and the average absolute errors of pitch angle, yaw angle and roll angle are 0.3449°, 0.3822° and 0.3884°, respectively, which meet the actual positioning requirements, and verify the practicability and superiority of the proposed position and attitude calculation method of APDR.

anti-punching drilling robot;position and attitude calculation;spatial array inertial measurement units;visual image;fusion positioning