Abstract: According to the poor stability of the present infrared detection method,limited detection accuracy,high cost and other problems,thepaper provided the positioning system of the shearer based on the distance measuring principle of a ultra wide band and in detail introduced thegeneral design structure,distance measuring and positioning principle,hardware composition and software design method of the positioning system.The prototype of system was applied to the underground mine test in No.311101 cal mining face of Bayangaole Mine.The results showed thatthe distance measuring error of the system positioning base station was less than 0.5 m and within the distance of0 m( 50 hydraulic powered supports ),the positioning accuracy of the shearer would be higher than the positioning system based on the infrared principle.The system could acourately and quickly position the location and direction of the coal shearer and would have the low cost,easy arrangement,simple calculaton,smaerror,high anti-interference capacity and other obvious advantages.