Abstract: This article proposes a positioning algorithm for tracing personnel and other activities target location in coal mines, analyzes problems of using the current RSSI-based ranging positioning algorithm in mine environment. According to the particular structure of coal mine and signal propagation characteristics, this algorithm designs a specific configuration of map and signal parameters, and describes the implementation of positioning algorithm based on path searching. The implementation platform of algorithm is constructed with ZigBee technology. Experiment results show that the algorithm is suitable for large-scale installation of mine with its higher accuracy and small amount of computation.