Abstract: The old empty tunnel of coal mine has these Characteristics of small space, irregular distribution, and it's difficult to be detected. In order to achieve the advanced coordinate detection for the old empty tunnel in front of the heading, this paper summarized and analyzed the technical characteristics, the construction method and the key technology of data analysis and explanation of Rayleigh wave and coal direct current resistivity method, and used their respective advantages and multi-parameter comprehensive method to detect the known old empty tunnel in the front of the heading in coal mine. The test results show that the old empty tunnel in this two kinds of detection methods are abnormal in reflection, this two methods are mutual complementation and mutual verification, which improves the reliability of the results of geophysical prospecting.