ACT intends to explore lucrative opportunities in remote mine equipment/automation in the medium-to-long term. (Re: Slide 20 - March 2009 presentation)

Those of you who have patience and a technical mind may be interested in reading this 10-page report published in 2002 by CSIRO - Exploration and Mining and CSIRO - Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology of Australia. [CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world. http://www.csiro.au/]

Report Title: The Application of Wireless LANS in Mine Automation (includes longwall automation)
URL: http://www.dem.csiro.au/mining_autom...
Introduction > The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of mine automation applications, developed at the Queensland Centre for Advanced Technology (QCAT), which make use of IEEE 802.11b wireless local area
networks (WLANs). The paper has been prepared for a 2002 conference entitled "Creating the Virtual Enterprise -
Leveraging wireless technology within existing business models for corporate advantage". Descriptions of the
WLAN components have been omitted here as such details are presented in the accompanying papers.
The structure of the paper is as follows. Application overviews are provided in Sections 2 to 7. Some pertinent
strengths and weaknesses are summarised in Section 8. Please refer to http://www.mining-automation.com/ or
contact the authors for further information.

Here is an excerpt from the report that I found particularly interesting as it highlights the advantages and potential of ACT's "open standards" based network.

Excerpt:

8.2 Strengths and opportunities

8.2.1 Open standards and protocols
A short-coming of many existing mine equipment communications systems is that the data interfaces are
proprietary. The use of proprietary interfaces tends to lock mines into a particular vendor. This precludes the participation of mine staff, third party contractors and vendors in ongoing expansion and maintenance activities.
Proprietary systems can be expensive. For example, the costs of mine-wide SCADA-based and leaker-feederbased
software management systems can exceed $5M and $20M respectively.
Different systems sourced from competing vendors are often not interoperable. Consequently mines tend
to install multiple systems in parallel. For example, the bulk of mine equipment monitoring is handled by SCADA
systems, video is provided by separate CCTV systems, a mixture of DAC intercom, analog telephone and leaky
feeder systems support voice communications, and, tube bundle systems are usually employed for mine-wide gas
monitoring.
In contrast, Ethernet LANs and WLANs are open systems, which can in principle support a wide range of
applications. In general, integrated systems are preferable to disparate applications co-existing on the same
platforms. Increasingly mines desire to select interchangeable systems from different manufacturers and vendors,
depending on the application, performance, reliability and support. It follows that a key for successful integration
is a common protocol. There are numerous application layer protocols for transporting sensor and equipment data
over Ethernet. These include Modbus/TCP, Ethernet/IP (or CIP), Profibus on Ethernet and Foundation Fieldbus
High Speed Ethernet (see [8] and the links therein).
Subject to managing EMC/EMI, coverage, congestion, redundancy, fail-safety, matching the technology,
and, integration, there are opportunities for the application of WLANs in mining industry applications, including:
sensor monitoring; equipment control; personal communications, and video surveillance. These are summarised
below.

8.2.2 Sensor monitoring (Already achieved by ACT.)
The process control industry is migrating from serial (i.e. RS-232, RS-495) to Ethernet (i.e. IEEE 802.3,
802.11b) networks. WLANs feature ubiquitously in urban organisations. Certainly the above-ground Ethernet
technology is mature and standardised (IEEE 802.3 was ratified in 1980). The legacy technology that is
conventionally disposed in underground mines is severely bandwidth limited and lacks interoperability with other
systems. Many equipment suppliers and vendors have commenced migrating their products and services to
Ethernet systems.
The uptake of ethernet by mines has been slow for various reasons. Unprotected cables, connectors and
housings borne out of pristine environments will not survive in mines. The intrinsic safety (IS) certification for use in hazardous zones is lacking. As mentioned above, for WLANs, the electomagnetic compatibility and interference
issues need to be resolved at each installation because they share unlicensed frequency bands, and, the co-existence
of multiple subscribers can hamper critical control applications.
Two industrial systems, namely an intrinsically safe (IS) Ethernet switch and an IS Ethernet sensor
interface are being developed by CSIRO in support of a Mine Communication and Information for Real-time Risk
Analysis Project. The industrial Ethernet sensor interface will be compatible with the large range of existing IS
current-loop sensors. The development of the industrial switch will allow LANs and WLANs to be implemented in
underground mines and thus support Ethernet sensor, equipment, telephony and video applications.
The legacy communication and process control technologies deployed in underground mines tend to be
centralised and lack redundancy, whereas Ethernet LANS and WLANs are amenable to being implemented as
autonomous subnets. Consequently the increased bandwidth can be accompanied by improved reliability.

8.2.3 Equipment control (Emerging opportunity for ACT.)
Many mine applications exist where platforms require mobility and hard-wired umbilical connections to
host computers are impractical. Such applications are potential candidates for WLAN technologies subject to the
qualifiers mentioned above. In addition to the examples described herein, other applications include automated
dispatching, loading, unloading, stock piling and traffic control.

8.2.4 Personnel communications (Already achieved by ACT.)
Underground mine personnel require voice communications that is sustained during mine emergencies.
Mine emergency incidents can be accompanied by a loss of mine power and damage to infrastructure. Thus two
important attributes of emergency communications systems are independence of mine power and robustness to
failures. An wireless Ethernet network exhibiting these attributes can be established. The network components
will need to be installed with battery backups and redundant loop connections. A so-called Spanning-Tree Protocol
accommodates multiple paths loops within a network. In the event a network change (such as path failures), the
spanning-tree algorithm can automatically reconfigure the network by making use of redundant paths.
Ethernet networks support internet protocol (IP) telephones, also known as voice over IP (VoIP)
telephones. VoIP telephones are in use within urban organisations throughout the world. Typically the VoIP
telephones are lined powered and connect directly to a RJ-45 wall socket, ethernet hub or switch. An international
VoIP standard (H.323) exists and is fully compatible with public networks. The open architecture allows a mix of
VoIP phones from different sources to be used, instead of relying on phones from one PBX manufacturer. VoIP
telephony can be used over 802.11b equipped laptop, palm and industrial GP-104 computers. A mine trial of VoIP
technology for emergency mine communications will be undertaken by CSIRO researchers.

8.2.5 Video surveillance (Already achieved by ACT.)
Video applications have been mentioned explicitly in Sections 2 and 3. It is perhaps not surprising that video is
being used routinely within most of our automation applications. In fact a new coal mine has nominated video
applications within their top three Ethernet services priorities (after equipment/sensor monitoring and personal
communications). International video coding and transmission standards (H.261, H.263) exist. However video
streaming must be planned and implemented so that adequate bandwidth remains available for the higher priority
tasks. Therefore in critical situations, it is recommended that separate subnets are established for underground
video monitoring. A mine trial of video over a network including hardwired and wireless Ethernet components will
be undertaken by CSIRO researchers.

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