OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
CCONNECTIVITY ONSIDERATIONS
Jaime Laguna discusses keeping underground mines connected with private wireless
Connectivity is a critical asset to ensure workers’ health and safety
F
rom a miner’s perspective, there are obvious differences between open-pit and underground mining. Surface mines consist of large, cone-shaped excavations in which workers, vehicles and machinery can move around. Underground environments feature thick rock walls, confined spaces and a continuously increasing network of tunnels and galleries in which operations take place in almost “blind” conditions. Connectivity is a critical asset in both types of environments. Fast, reliable data transfer is vitally important for enabling digital automation and ensuring workers’ health and safety in areas with limited visibility for people and systems. But below-ground operations present some unique challenges to the mine’s communication network.
COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES Complex and continuously changing layouts and signal reflection from
underground machinery make it difficult to plan, design and deploy mine networks. Geological, geotechnical and operational factors such as extraction sequence, optimisation restrictions and requirements make ubiquitous connectivity essential. Different teams may operate in different sections of a mine simultaneously or move between areas from week to week. As more automated processes come online, they need to be enabled even when workers aren’t present.
What this means is that connectivity must be everywhere. Furthermore, the communications infrastructure needs to support a wide range of new digital applications, such as underground location, ventilation management, and water inrush and methane gas monitoring.
Te challenge is to deliver flexible
and reliable wireless data and voice communication across a continuously changing geography in a variety of harsh
production environments – around corners, despite possible interference – so that automated processes and equipment can function seamlessly, and workers stay connected. It’s a tall order for any network. Wi-Fi has limitations, even in opencast mining. For example, Wi-Fi access points have limited reach and blasts can impair their configurations, which makes them unsuitable for continuous operations. Wi- Fi networks also lack the quality-of-service features required to prioritise critical network traffic. Moving underground creates even greater challenges because Wi-Fi signals can be weakened and distorted by the structure of the mine itself. Tis creates the need for a high density of access points. In the ultra- connected mine, there can be no tolerance for patchy coverage. To ensure always-on, everywhere
coverage, mining operators may need a combination of radio technologies
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