Abstract: Advance geological prospecting has gradually become one of the most important work during tunnel construction, which plays a crucial role in the prevention and control of adverse geological conditions and safety guarantee in front of tunnels. On the basis of collecting relevant research data as well as investigating the advance geological prospecting technology in field test, the authors summarize the current situation of research and application of advance geological prospecting method in tunnels. At present, the advance geological prospecting technology in drilling and blasting tunnels has been relatively mature, and the integrated detecting method has been basically adopted, future research will focus further on automation and intelligent technologies; moreover, the advance geological prospecting method in TBM construction tunnels has made a great progress, and the integration of advance geological prospecting device and TBM has been preliminarily come true; in the field of advance geological prospecting for shield tunneling, explorations into seismic wave and electrical method advance detection have been initiated, and certain achievements have been obtained. Finally, the development trend of the advance geological prospecting technology is predicted, and it is believed that the following four directions are the focuses and trends of the future research: (1) automation, integrated carrying equipment and miniaturized, lightweight portable equipment research and development, as well as the development of distributed wireless receiving equipment for complex environments; (2) real-time advance geological prospecting technology research; (3) refined imaging method research and intelligent interpretation research; (4) Intelligent and real-time advance geological forecast data management and early warning technology.

Key words: tunnel engineering, advance geological prospecting, intelligent interpretation, tunnel boring machine, drilling and blasting method