The study summarises the operating characteristics of the powered roof support (shield) used in an automated plough system. Investigated longwall support units were controlled automatically or by section engineers and positioned in the ‘saw tooth’ configuration with respect to the longwall face (automatic mode) or linear to the face. Shield pressure data have been analysed in order to identify the impacts of particular factors on the pressure increase profiles. The analysis was supported by the Statistica software to determine the statistical significance of isolated factors. Equations governing the leg pressure at the given time instant were derived and the roof stability factor ‘