To cover safety and emergency mine communications, as well as day to day management requirements, Narrabri North is installing two main Mine Site Technologies’ communication infrastructures: the PED communication and emergency warning system and the ImPact Underground Digital Network. ICCL cap lamps, which are already in use at the mine, contain PED Text Receiver and Wi-Fi RFID Tag circuits to operate from each of these infrastructures respectively.

The PED transmission system consists of an 11 km surface antenna that has been designed to provide mine wide signal coverage to the current and future underground developments for the next several years. It will enable one-way paging to personnel wherever they are in the mine, providing a very useful day to day management tool as well as a vital emergency communication system should an emergency ever arise.

To complement the PED System, Narrabri North is rolling out an underground Wi-Fi network. Any initial 25 Wireless Network Switches/Wi-Fi Access Points will provide strategic Wi-Fi coverage on the main travel roads at strategic points underground. This underground digital network will enable a number of 802.11b/g applications, key applications include:

– Tracking the location of personnel underground via RFID Tags within each miner’s cap lamp

– Tracking vehicles as they move about the mine by self contained RFID tags attached to each vehicle

– Two-way voice communications via VoIP Telephone handsets. The VoIP telephone system will be integrated into the mine’s general phone system at the PABX to allow a seamless connection between all phones types used on site.

Another important application is extending the use of the tracking system information to provide an automated traffic management system for the drift into the mine.