current pitch angle of the shearer 300 depends on the ground level that supports the afc 215 and the future pitch angle of the shearer 300 depends on the vertical position of the floor cutter 340 because the floor cutter 340 carves out from the mineral face 216 the floor on which the afc 215 will be advancing over for example lowering the floor cutter 340 will decrease the pitch angle of the shearer 300 as the afc 215 advances while raising the floor cutter 340 will increase the pitch angle of the shearer 300 as the afc 215 advances when the pitch of the shearer is too low the shearer 300 risks crashing into the mineral face 216 and shutting down however when the pitch of the shearer 300 is too high the shearer 300 may instead tip backward therefore when the pitch of the shearer 300 operates outside of a desired pitch range the shearer 300 increases the risk of causing downtime and even damage to the shearer 300 or other parts of the mining system 200 e g the roof support 205 monitoring the position of the shearer 300 also minimizes down time of the longwall mining system 200 and minimizes the possibility of causing extraction problems such as for example degradation of mineral material deterioration of mineral.