Mine Site Technologies (MST) has provided a remote area communication solution based on Rajant’s 802.11 Wireless Mesh Breadcrumbs for Beaconsfield gold mine in Tasmania, Australia. In the mine’s on-going program to enhance safety, Beaconsfield engineers identified remote surveying using a laser scanner offered significant opportunity to avoid personnel being exposed to unsupported areas in the mine.  However, to enable download of scanned survey data was an issue, as the active stopes had no fixed communication infrastructure.MST reviewed the site and felt the application of a mobile Wi-Fi mesh system offered the simplest and most reliable solution.  The set up that has been installed is:

• Laser scanner and Rajant SE Breadcrumb are mounted on the bucket of a remotely operated LHD
• The scanner is driven into and takes makes a high resolution scan of the stope and the data is downloaded in real-time to the Rajant SE Breadcrumb mounted on the bogger via a simple CAT5 cable connection between the two units
• The machine mounted breadcrumb continuously transmits the data to a second Rajant SE Breadcrumb mounted at the entrances to the open stope area
• This second breadcrumb than re-transmits the data to a third breadcrumb where that data is than transmitted for wireless upload to a lap top in a safe area

See diagram below showing the set up currently used.

The Rajant SE Breadcrumbs were used because of their high quality data throughput and ease of setup.  The set up is straightforward as the Rajant units can be either used whilst connected to a mains power supply or be fully self contained by operating off their internal batteries, hence minimising infrastructure requirements. Though a fairly simple installation, this simplicity has been achieved by using Rajant’s advanced mesh technology, being the well proven and rugged breadcrumb devices.