High-Precision Coal Mine Microseismic P-Wave Arrival Picking via Physics-Constrained Deep Learning

The automatic identification of P-wave arrival times in microseismic signals is crucial for the intelligent monitoring and early warning of dynamic hazards in coal mines. Traditional methods suffer from low accuracy and poor stability due to complex underground geological conditions and substantial noise interference. This paper proposes a microseismic P-wave arrival time automatic picking model that integrates physical constraints with a deep learning architecture. This study trained and optimized the model using a high-quality, manually labeled dataset. A systematic comparison with the AR picker algorithm and the short-term–long-term average ratio method revealed that this model achieved a precision of 96.60%, a recall of 90.59%, and an F1 score of 93.50% on the test set, with a P-wave arrival time-picking error of less than 20 ms. The average arrival time error was only 5.49 ms, significantly outperforming traditional methods. In cross-mining area generalization tests, the model performed excellently in two mining areas with consistent sampling frequencies (1000 Hz) and high signal-to-noise ratios, demonstrating good engineering transferability. However, its performance decreased in a mining area with a higher sampling rate and stronger noise, indicating its sensitivity to data acquisition parameters. This study developed a high-precision, robust, and potentially cross-domain adaptive model for automatically picking microseismic P-wave arrival times. This model provides support for the automation, precision, and intelligence of coal mine microseismic monitoring systems and has significant practical value in promoting real-time early warning and risk prevention for mine dynamic hazards.