Abstract: In view of potential safety hazards of accidentally injuring pedestrians during operation process of conveyor at the back of continuous shearer, a pedestrian monitoring and protection system of continuous shearer based on infrared thermal imaging was designed. Firstly, long-wave infrared probe was used to monitor sensitive areas of the conveyor at the back of continuous shearer and real-timely collect infrared image information in the sensitive areas. Then, microprocessor was used to process the infrared image information, and pedestrians were detected; when pedestrians were detected entering the sensitive area, the pedestrian information would be rapidly judged by microprocessor within 1 s, meanwhile an early warning protection strategy would be triggered; when the pedestrians exited the sensitive area, the early warning protection mechanism would stop automatically; when the pedestrians passed over the sensitive area, at that time, an emergency stop control strategy would be triggered by microprocessor, so as to make the conveyor at the back of continuous shearer stop urgently to protect safety of crossing pedestrians. The site test results show that the system is stable and reliable with high recognition accuracy, and can effectively monitor pedestrians within the range of 1 to 2 meters on the front left area of the conveyor at the back of the continuous shearer, which effectively guaranteed life safety of pedestrians nearby the continuous shearer.