Wireless Monitoring is Proving Useful in Many Industries, Including Surface Mining

Over the last few years, more and more businesses and industries have begun to adopt wireless monitoring as an integral part of their business operations. Wireless monitoring is now used to increase safety and efficiency in industries and applications as diverse as  maple syrup production, foam insulating, and even monitoring the well-being of the elderly.

We are now living in an information age. There is growing awareness among business professionals in almost all industries and market sectors regarding the value of collecting, analyzing and making decisions based on detailed real-time data.

This article from The New York Times about the wireless monitoring system installed on the Jindo Bridge in South Korea is a couple of years old, but it still makes some valid points. In the article, the monitoring system and how it works is described, and we won’t repeat any of that here. However, of interest is this quote from John W. Wallace, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the structural/earthquake engineering research lab at the University of California, Los Angeles:

“Wireless systems like the Jindo Bridge network, a prototype now in its third year of testing, won’t replace human monitoring. But the data collected by the network can help bridge owners make informed decisions.”

This is totally relevant to the use of wireless monitoring systems in open-pit/surface mines. The intention should never be to try to replace engineering staff with high-technology items. Instead, properly installed and used wireless monitoring systems are a useful tool in the hands of mine engineering staff, making them more efficient by removing the need for laborious manual data gathering.

Wireless monitoring systems are excellent at gathering accurate information in real time, but to be useful, this data needs to be analyzed and acted on by skilled, experienced mine engineers.

If you are planning to install a wireless monitoring system in your surface mine, then the Loadsensing LS-G6 system from Worldsensing is the ideal solution. This robust, low-maintenance, fully-wireless system can read and log data from almost all types of commonly used analogue, digital, and vibrating wire geotechnical and hydrogeology sensors. The Loadsensing LS-G6 wireless monitoring system is also very easy to install and data is easily accessible from mobile devices, e.g. a smartphone or tablet running an Android app.