Wireless Information and Safety System for Underground Mines

Underground mine operations are associated with severe safety problems and due to the high attenuation of radio frequency waves in mines the application of wireless communication systems are highly restricted. To overcome these problems a RFID based wireless information and safety system has been developed at Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research, Dhanbad, India. The hardware components of the system are ZigBee-compliant active radio frequency identification (RFID) devices / transceivers. The devices can be programmed to act as end device (tag), router or coordinator that enables them to form an IEEE 802.15.4-based mesh network. It uses a unified wireless mesh-networking infrastructure to locate, trace and manage mobile assets and people as well as monitor different environmental conditions using sensors. The associated software has been developed for tracking of underground miners and moveable equipment by wireless sensor networking in mines. The paper describes the developed system and its applications. 1