There are a number of studies concentrating on drilling equipment and drilling methods, but none investigates the impact performance and optimization of DTH (down-the-hole) drilling. It is very difficult to experimentally evaluate the performance of a DTH hammer, because putting together an experimental setup for DTH drilling requires a great deal of money and time. Therefore, this paper examines the characteristics and performance of DTH hammers through pneumatic simulation after a thorough investigation of their working mechanism. In addition, the parameters linked to the performance of DTH hammers were selected using the design-of-experiment method, and then the optimization of performance factors, which are the impact rate and impact energy, was investigated using Taguchi method.