Wireless Monitoring, Canada
Need to keep tabs on your mine? Go wireless!
n modern underground mines, there is a move away from cable-based monitoring systems towards wireless monitoring systems. The Newtrax MineHop wireless system is an ideal choice for this application.
Because a wireless monitoring network based on the MineHop system and incorporating MDT-RTU, VW-RTU and other types of wireless nodes as appropriate to gather data from an array of geotechnical, hydrological, and other monitoring instruments does not require any cabling for power provision or data transfer, it offers many benefits to underground mine operators in Canada, including:
- Simple, fast setup – With no need to install kilometres of cabling and connect it all up, installation crews can move much faster and deploy a comprehensive network within a fraction of the time usually taken to install and commission a cable-based system.
- Cost savings – Setting up a wireless monitoring system saves money directly because there is no need for large quantities of expensive cabling, and indirectly because the network is built faster, requiring fewer man hours and therefore reduced labour costs.
- Scalability – Due to their simplicity and ability to be rapidly deployed, wireless monitoring systems can easily be scaled up to cover new areas of a mine (especially important given how much expansion is occurring in the Canadian mining sector).
- Immediacy – Data obtained from geotechnical and hydrological instruments is moved through the wireless monitoring network and to a PC, or mobile device in some cases, within milliseconds – allowing for real-time, accurate monitoring.
- Reliability – Each wireless node can communicate with all other nodes within range, so data can be moved to the Ethernet gateway via a variety of different “pathways”, making the system self-healing, i.e. if one wireless node is not operational, data will simply flow around it via another route.
- Reduced risk of equipment damage – Because there is no network of cables strung all over the mine to move data from instruments to a central point, there is also no risk of vehicle accidents and other equipment damage caused by snagging (and of course no risk of damaging the monitoring network as well).
