HIGH PROFILE
Meshing with autonomy
Kinetic Mesh ® networks leader Rajant Corporation has made some major announcements recently including validation with Komatsu ’ s autonomous haulage system & with Epiroc ’ s semi-autonomous & autonomous drilling . Paul Moore caught up with Sagar Chandra , VP of Sales , Americas ; Marnus Kruger – Sales Director , Africa & Karel Venter – Senior Sales Engineer , EMEA
Q What does validation of Rajant Kinetic Mesh with Komatsu AHS mean ? SC : Even though numerous mining customers currently use Komatsu equipment with the Rajant Kinetic Mesh network , the Komatsu AHS validation process is necessary . The validation ensures that a complex and advanced system , such as AHS , will be implemented on sound and proven wireless technology . Achieving AHS validation is essential : it provides an added confidence level to the mining companies , and it reflects the successful deployments Rajant Kinetic Mesh already had with autonomous and tele-operated systems .
Q What type of testing was used to achieve the validation ? SC : Komatsu has a well-defined process and validation criteria for the system focused on increasing productivity without sacrificing safety . This includes various tests and validations ranging from environmental specifications to the full functionality of the complete system . At a granular level , the validation did include the typical parameters for measuring connectivity and performance of the Rajant Kinetic Mesh network . One advantage was that there was plenty of actual “ in the pit ” performance data for the Rajant network , with more than 270 installations at mine operations worldwide , that was valuable during the process .
Q How can Kinetic Mesh be used in conjunction with LTE & WiFi ? SC : As users of smartphones , we are all familiar with LTE connectivity - where we appreciate its benefits from a single tower covering long distances . Still , we also tolerate the dropped calls and the dreaded single bar , which are part of our daily lives . We also depend on WiFi at home and work but realise that WiFi has significant distance limitations . On the other hand , Rajant Kinetic Mesh is designed from the ground up to provide real-time connectivity at extended distances to equipment that is always on the move . This makes our solution ideal for the haulage and loading fleet , which require high bandwidth with low latency download and upload speeds . Many mining operations started implementing LTE for its coverage benefit . Still , they quickly learned that a single LTE-based network supporting the myriad of technologies - installed on its mobile fleet - is unreliable and attainable as LTE was never designed for this application . Therefore , the more popular approach recently has been a hybrid network design that enjoys the benefits of LTE for infrastructure and the benefits of Rajant Kinetic Mesh for the mobile haulage and loading fleet . Rajant has supported WiFi mode for interoperability and compatibility since its inception . We recently added an LTE radio to our fourth generation Peregrine platform , which has already been adopted globally and is the highest performing radio in the industry , supporting an aggregated bandwidth up to 2.6 Gbps .
Q How do you see Rajant Kinetic Mesh evolving in autonomous mining ? MK & KV : The adoption of autonomous and teleoperated systems has been steadily growing , and given its benefits , it will continue to grow faster . Rajant InstaMesh was designed to support mobility ( Kinetic Mesh ) and focuses on ensuring application data ( video , voice and data ) gets through no matter what . With the increasing video demands and persistent communications required , Rajant remains the ideal solution for these new applications . Rajant began integrating with these technologies years ago , and we have a clearly defined strategy to ensure we continue providing a faster , reliable , and scalable solution to our partners and end-users . For our partners , it includes new hardware and software options to make integration easier . For our customers , the strategy lets the mining companies focus primarily on productivity , efficiency , and safety of the operations instead of worrying about how to keep the mobile fleet connected in real time . And our multi-radio M2M BreadCrumbs do not require fixed infrastructure to extend communications , thereby covering a much larger area while maintaining high throughput with ultra-low latency . In an underground context , the capability to do multi-hop , near-lossless , linear meshing is essential to our customer operations as it drastically minimises deployment and maintenance efforts . Rajant is the only vendor to support this . And by enabling WiFi mode , Rajant can connect to any WiFi IIoT device , including fans , seismic sensors , personnel and asset tracking ( with Rajant MeshTracer ), VoIP and internet devices , to name a few . With Rajant , we need to power our units and are ready to provide network connectivity . It ’ s also an ideal solution for robotic inspection .
Q What makes Kinetic Mesh particularly suitable to semi or fully autonomous drilling ? MK & KV : Epiroc ' s RCS system was one of the first semi-autonomous surface drilling solutions to gain widespread adoption among mining customers . The requirement for constant throughput and low latency industrial wireless connectivity for “ office-to-bench ” tele-remote operation posed a challenge for legacy wireless solutions like WiFi . This is due to limited range , lower throughput , and 10x latency . Drills require higher throughput than dozers or haul trucks and need infrastructure to be at extended distances while requiring higher uplink throughput for video vs downlink . These are not a fit for LTE either . So , it was quite fortuitous that many of the surface mining sites that attempted to adopt the Epiroc RCS system already had Rajant Kinetic Mesh networks providing mobile wireless connectivity to their mining fleets . Rajant assisted customers in implementing some best practices when adding the RCS system to their existing Kinetic Mesh networks , which guaranteed the throughput and latency required . Today , Epiroc autonomous and semi-automatic drilling solutions are actively being used at a large number of the more than 270 mines using Rajant Kinetic Mesh globally . IM
48 International Mining | OCTOBER 2022