Tag Archives: PDS

Booyco lays groundwork for all miners to achieve Level-9 safety compliance

Supporting mines in their quest for zero-harm, Booyco Electronics says its CXS solution has leveraged technology to achieve new levels of safety in underground and surface mining environments.

“The Booyco CXS solution is engineered to mitigate the risk of collisions between pedestrians and vehicles, or between vehicles, in operational environments,” Booyco Electronics CEO, Anton Lourens, says. “This system takes the vital step from being just a warning system to becoming a collision avoidance system.”

Lourens highlights that the Booyco CXS consolidates everything the company has learnt in its 15 years of serving the sector. By upgrading to a new hardware platform, the system’s software updates can be conducted remotely and more frequently – providing increased functionality. It also allows users to comply with the latest and ever more stringent safety regulations.

“Our Booyco CXS is a comprehensive and integrated response to Level 7, Level 8 and Level 9 safety levels – as defined by the Earth Moving Equipment Safety Round Table (EMESRT),” he says.

The new hardware platform is based on principles proven by Booyco Electronics over many years. Technology includes the reliable and accurate Very Low Frequency technology for pedestrian detection, and GPS and radio frequency technology for vehicle detection in surface applications.

“At the heart of the system is the Booyco Host Unit (BHU),” Lourens says. “This receives information from the pedestrian sensors, the trackless mining machine sensors and the wheeled mobile equipment sensors. It then conducts the necessary proximity calculations and algorithms to alert users to any impending risk scenarios.”

Lourens also emphasises that this BHU integrates with original equipment manufacturer systems, either directly or through a third-party interface, in accordance with ISO 21815.

“This allows the Booyco CXS to apply Level 9 intervention instructions to the machine, as required to, for example, automatically slowing it down or bringing it to a complete stop,” he says. “Our flexible, comprehensive approach with the Booyco CXS solution has been developed to ensure that all customers can achieve Level 9 compliance, irrespective of the age of their machines.”

Mining3 equips miners with tools for proximity detection decision making

Mining3 has launched an online sensor technology capability tool that provides users with, it says, unbiased information on Proximity Detection System (PDS) sensors to assist in their decision-making process.

The PDS Toolkit is part of the Mining3 ACARP funded project titled, ‘PDS Validation Framework – Phase 3’. The interface provides a high-level summary of the six most prevalent PDS sensors available to the market, according to Mining3.

This information has been extracted from the PDS Sensor Capability Assessment document developed by the PDS Project Team comprised of Mining3, the University of Pretoria and The University of Queensland. The document, in its entirety, will also be published and made available to industry shortly, Mining3 said.

Mining3 Chief Operating Officer, Susan Grandone, said: “The purpose of this toolkit is to provide a fundamental understanding of how various sensors operate, both individually and in combination. This, in turn, will aid in a user’s decision-making process by providing unbiased information and data on each sensor.”

As well as providing individual sensor information, the toolkit contains a spider attribute chart that enables users to toggle between the sensors, identifying strengths and weaknesses for a specific application or attribute. A searchable scoring system with the ability to filter is also available in a table format underneath.

Finally, sensor technology usage in the PDS/Collision Avoidance System industry and references used in compiling the assessment document and developing the toolkit are also provided.

Free access to the PDS Toolkit is available to the industry, however users will need to register as a method of accepting the usage disclaimer, Mining3 said.

Click here to access the toolkit.