3 ways the Internet of Things can improve health and safety in mining
We recently interviewed Internet of Things (IoT) expert, Dr. Binghao Li, to better understand how IoT can make the resources sector safer.
Dr. Li is an Associate Professor with the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, UNSW, and Masterclass facilitator of AusIMM’s specialist technical masterclass, Mine Internet of Things, powered by UNSW Sydney.
Dr. Li is passionate about the ways technology is able to intersect with mining to reduce risk. “Mine IoT can help with a lot of things,” he says. “It can monitor noise pollution, water quality and the safety of both workers and assets.”
“This technology can predict the maintenance of equipment, and help us to predict and avoid disaster." Dr Li says monitoring tailing dams to reduce the risk of failure is an example of a situation where IOT technology could be deployed.This would involve the use of a lot of sensors, including GPS receivers around the tailing dams.
This is an extraordinary application for this technology. In effect, the Internet of Things has the capacity to save lives. “If something, say, a lot of rain happens, we can create a model and predict what will happen in ten days,” Li says. “If we can't avoid the disaster completely, we can, at least, have enough time to evacuate all the people around it.”
Li explains this is possible because the GPS receiver is highly accurate and can monitor movement at the centimetre level – “even the millimetre level,” he adds.
The application of sensors does not end there. Dr Li says sensors can be used to check the temperature, the humidity, or to measure the amount of gas present. All these things can be deployed, for example, in underground mine tunnels as part of safety monitoring.
While there are a lot of benefits with increasing the use of IoT in mining, it is not without risks.
“If we don't use this technology correctly, it can give you the wrong information,” Li says. “The wrong information, I think, is worse than no information.”
Dr Li also says a lot of sensors and related devices are deployed for mine IoT systems. In the future, once the equipment is no longer needed (for example, if replaced by new devices), the older pieces may be discarded, creating more waste if there is not a suitable way to manage it.
Taking the risks into consideration, the Internet of Things has powerful capacity to improve the resources sector. Not only can the Internet of Things increase worker safety, it can also enhance operations.
Previously, Li worked on a project called The New Hybrid Wireless IoT Platform for Underground Mines, which his team refer to as “deep IoT”.
“For the deep IoT project, we integrated several communication technologies including Wi-Fi, UWB and Bluetooth.”
One of the major project outcomes is the first UWB-based underground collision avoidance system. Crucially, this can prevent vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-worker collisions.
In the future, LoRa will also be integrated as part of the deep IoT project. LoRa, short for “long-range”, can easily transmit signals over tens of kilometres. LoRa is specifically designed for IoT devices and is unique because, according to Li, “we can control it”.
“We can create our own network, so we don't have to rely on the existing infrastructure," says Li. For example, LoRa could be applied underground to create a backup communication system. “We could deploy a temp network quickly in case a disaster were to eventuate.”
Ready for the next step? Explore the fundamentals of technologies needed for MIoT like sensors, actuators, communications, positioning, data analytics, programming, big data and Artificial Intelligence wirth AusIMM's Mine Internet of Things Technical Masterclass, facilitated by Dr. Binghao Li. Review recent developments of these technologies; and learn how to keep data and systems safe in a connected online environment.
Ready for the next step? Explore the fundamentals of technologies needed for MIoT like sensors, actuators, communications, positioning, data analytics, programming, big data and Artificial Intelligence wirth AusIMM's Mine Internet of Things Technical Masterclass, facilitated by Dr. Binghao Li. Review recent developments of these technologies; and learn how to keep data and systems safe in a connected online environment.
