MINE SAFETY
Komatsu and Strata both worked with the
mining operation over the two-year period to
ensure the relevant hazards were understood down’ and ‘stop’ information to be exchanged
between the PDS and the OEM system,” he said.
The next meeting on this ISO standard is
and controlled, which has led to incremental
improvements being made to the integrated
system throughout the trial period.
Strata’s Mullins said the system had been
running in sections at the mine since the start of expected to take place in Brisbane, this month,
but it is understood Strata and other PDS
suppliers have already implemented and trialled
this year, with 40-50 people equipped with
HazardAvert Caplamps as of late-August. The
mine has four production crews, with two of
these crews currently using the vehicle-to-
personnel PDS, he said.
By the end of the year, Mullins expects all
shuttle cars, personnel and continuous miners at
the operation to be equipped with the
technology. He then sees the mine moving
towards vehicle-to-vehicle interaction, which
involves adding proximity detection to LHDs at
the mine, within the next 12-18 months.
Vehicle-to-vehicle interaction would be a
global first in underground coal mining
environments, he said.
This is not all for Strata Worldwide, with
Mullins saying the company is currently working
with other coal mining companies in Queensland
on similar proximity detection projects.
Michaud, meanwhile, said the HazardAvert
system has recently been granted EAC
certification to operate in Russia and the
company was working with partners on
integrating HazardAvert in an autonomous
shuttle car in South Africa.
On the latter, he said: “We will be adapting
some of our interface for this autonomous
installation. As opposed to today where we issue
commands over the CANBUS to the OEM, we are
looking at the moment to issue the command to
the autonomous vehicle control engine. This
autonomous vehicle control engine will take that
input and control the machine.”
Interoperability
Many of the PDS providers on the board of
EMESRT are also working hard to ensure there is
an interface standard on OEM machines for them
to integrate into on mine sites.
As Newtrax, another provider of CAS, said:
“One of the projects EMESRT has been charged
with is developing an open-architecture industry
communications standard for proximity detection
and vehicle interaction.
“In a 2015 workshop, the group of OEMs,
proximity detection suppliers and mining
companies discussed a common protocol for
communications between PDS and OEM devices
in the mining industry.”
The CANBUS ISO 21815 standard is key to
enabling this, according to Michaud.
“This ISO 21815 CANBUS specification allows
for the communication of a wide variety of ‘slow
International Mining | OCTOBER 2019
the draft interface with several OEM and test
systems.
Real-time visibility
Location awareness technology is also what
nanotron Technologies specialises in and mining
technology specialist Meglab recently agreed to
incorporate this into its own Imagine platform, a
modular, web-based mine management system
that provides real-time visibility of the
underground mine environment.
nanotron’s swarmbee modules will enhance
Imagine’s functionality by enabling users to
efficiently track the location and status of mining
equipment and workers, as well as any
dangerous proximity to other vehicles or
machines, according to nanotron.
The company said: “By monitoring the
location of workers, vehicles and machines in
real time throughout the mine, Imagine
facilitates smart ventilation automation, face
has been granted with a Certificate of Approval
by the Certification Body Global-Mark.
At this stage, the certificate has been issued
under the name of Dafo Vehicle Fire Protection’s
Australian partner, BFI Fire Pty Ltd/Dafo
Australia.
Dafo has sold more than 100,000 fire
suppression systems to manufacturers such as
Volvo, Atlas Copco (now Epiroc), Caterpillar,
Scania, Sandvik, Komatsu, MAN, John Deere and
Ponsse, but has so far struggled to break into the
Australia mobile equipment sector.
Holger Pfriem, Business Manager, Asia and
Australasia, Dafo Vehicle Fire Protection, said
of the certification: “This is a big step for us to
make more impact on the Australian heavy-
duty mobile equipment market mainly within
the areas of mining, cargo, construction,
forestry, waste and agricultural handling
equipment in a broader and more
comprehensive perspective.”
David Thurn, Managing Director of Dafo
Australia, said the company was confident the AS
5062 certification will facilitate the expansion of
its business in Australia and, as a second step,
reports, lamp assignment, mine evacuation
support, call for assistance and collision
awareness. The result is a safer, better the company planned to soon launch a fluorine-
free agent for fire protection.
According to the US National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, 76% of mine
workers are exposed to hazardous noise, with
manageable and more effective work
environment.”
Louis Valade, President of Meglab, said the the use of heavy equipment, rock drilling,
blasting and a confined work environment some
of the factors contributing to high levels of
company chose nanotron’s location-awareness
technology because it is lightweight, yet
powerful, long range and autonomous.
“It provides robust radio coverage in harsh exposure.
Figures from the same organisation also state
one in four mine workers has a hearing problem
and four out of five have a hearing impairment by
mining environments,” he said, adding that
nanotron’s solutions can scale to the needs of
any mining application.
Each miner and piece of equipment being
tracked by the nanotron solution is fitted with a
small tag, which emits a wireless chirp signal at the time they reach their mid-60s.
While these conditions are improving with the
incorporation of new technology – think battery-
electric machinery above and below ground –
pre-set intervals. These signals are detected by
other tags, which then forward them using a
mesh network. When the signals reach the
system’s central access points, the position of
each tag is determined by measuring the TOF, ie
the distance that a signal has travelled is
calculated from its travel time.
Fire and noise prevention
Dafo Vehicle Fire Protection has its eyes on the
Australia mobile equipment market with its SV-K
fire suppression system after being awarded an
AS 5062 certification by regulators in the
country.
The company said it has fulfilled the
requirements of the Australian Standard AS
5062:2016 – Fire protection for mobile and
transportable equipment for the system – and
Simon Field, a technical specialist at 3M, thinks
the company’s four-step approach can keep
workers safe from noise damage.
Detection
The first step is to carry out a workplace
assessment to determine whether there is a
problem with hazardous noise to begin with,
according to Field. “As a rule of thumb, if
employees need to raise their voices when
speaking to one another, or if the noise is
otherwise intrusive, it is likely that sound levels
are too high,” he said. In any areas in which this
is the case, accurate noise measurements should
be taken, either in-house by a competent person,
or by a hired consultant.”
These results can help determine which noise
control methods to use, re-evaluate risk
assessments and select appropriate hearing
protection equipment (HPE).