Personnel Positioning and Vehicle Collision Awareness System for Underground Mining
RealTrac Collision Awareness
The product is aimed to reduce the number of accidents caused by collisions between vehicles, machinery and personnel in conditions of poor visibility.
Advantages:
o 360 ° monitoring around a vehicle
o Detecting a distance to and direction of another object with accuracy up to 1 meter.
o Three control zones with ability to configure them as required
o The system can operate independently and also be integrated into other systems
o Short payback period
Operating Principle and Components
The system provides a situational awareness of the environment around a vehicle; detects presence of vehicles, personnel or objects within the pre-set zones. As soon as any object, vehicle or personnel equipped by RealTrac Collision Awareness tag enters the pre-set zones, the system emits tangible, audible and visual signals. Alerts are emitted by:
Audible warning from machinery, activation of sirens or horns
Vibro signal from a tag
Blinking of a cap lamp
Vehicle lights blinking or activation of other visual signals
The intensity of alerts can be configured depending on the control zone.
RealTrac Positioning
The product is aimed to detect positioning of miners, mining machinery and other objects on various mine levels, in faces, stopes (mines) using various radio technologies.
Key Benefits:
o Enables to meet the legislative requirements and industrial security regulations in underground mining operation
o Can use existing underground mine infrastructure
o The hardware can be embedded into cap lamp and a miner doesn’t need additional equipment
o The modularity of the system enables to add further functionality as required
o Due to a single infrastructure, there is a possibility to upgrade a zonal positioning into precise positioning simply by adding additional anchors
o Integration by means of the open protocol (API) enables to transmit the data to the HR recordkeeping system, computer-aided process control system etc.
Monitoring of Personnel Access Levels
Due to geo zones with various access levels, an operator is always informed if the personnel are trespassing any forbidden zones or not. The reporting system enables to find out the access levels system violations and to prevent such incidents.
Personnel Positioning Monitoring in Underground Mine
An operator can receive data in real-time not only about the positioning of miners and vehicles, but also about the motion path of the monitored objects within certain period of time.
Control of Work-Time and Time Spent in a Geofence
The RealTrac system enables to register the personnel entry and exit times from a certain geofence. This helps to monitor positioning of personnel in certain zones of a mine and to alert a miner about the need to get to the surface. The data about events is stored in server up to 10 years.
Personnel Emergency Notifications
In case of emergency, the system sends notifications about evacuation need to all miners. Also, the system enables to use additional warning devices like: sirens, alarm reporting etc.
Personnel Detection and Evacuation in Cases of Emergencies
The system provides a real-time control of the evacuation process, while displaying: time spent, personnel motion paths during the evacuation, and what is most important – the system enables to detect positioning of the personnel that couldn’t timely get to safe assembly points.