Tag Archives: Peregrine

Rajant and STRACONTech boost network coverage at Hudbay’s Constancia mine

Base metals, Communications in mining, IoT, Mine operation news, Mining services, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Rajant Corporation, the pioneer of Kinetic Mesh® wireless networks, and STRACONTech, a Kinetic Mesh Partner in Lima, Peru, say they have increased bandwidth and improved networking coverage at the Constancia mine in Peru, a project owned by Hudbay Minerals.

After reviewing options, the mine selected to invest in Rajant’s solution for mobility, which allows an almost “plug-and-play” integration with the mine’s existing LTE network, Rajant said. Eduardo Rojas, IT Manager at Hudbay, said: “Our mining operation needed a better design for its haulage and loading fleet. With the Rajant hybrid solution, we now have a significant increase in bandwidth, which will allow us to be more efficient.”

With the Rajant Peregrine LTE BreadCrumb®, the mine obtained a four times performance improvement, going from a limit of 10 Mb/s with LTE up to 40 Mb/s.

The Rajant Peregrine LTE allows connectivity on multiple frequencies simultaneously, including LTE. This improves operations so connectivity is not lost with the mining fleet even when interference exists on the 2.4 GHz, 5 Ghz, or LTE band, Rajant says.

Rajant Vice President of Sales (Americas/APAC), Sagar Chandra, added: “All mining operations want reliable and scalable connectivity. We successfully improved the performance of the installed LTE network using the Peregrine LTE, which offers the unique benefit of Kinetic Mesh and direct machine-to-machine connectivity.”

Rajant and STRACONTech teams started with a proof of concept, resulting in a larger phased installation, delivering improved performance.

STRACONTech’s team explains: “We measured 30-32 Mb/s at 1 km while the mine’s LTE had a ceiling of 10 Mb/s. We solved the challenge they had. Moreover, the investment in the Peregrine LTE was a one-time cost for the mine without recurring annual software or maintenance costs, saving them long-term.”

Hudbay’s Constancia mine produced 89,395 t of copper, 58,229 oz of gold and 2.3 Moz of silver in 2022.

Rajant’s BreadCrumb Peregrine unlocks tech deployment possibilities for Anglo American in South Africa

Automation, Communications in mining, IoT, Mine operation news, Mining services, , , , , , , , , ,

Rajant Corporation, the pioneer of Kinetic Mesh® wireless networks, says it has successfully deployed its fourth-generation BreadCrumb® Peregrine node at an Anglo American operation in South Africa.

Peregrine, which supports a maximum combined data rate of 2.3 Gb/s and up to six times enhanced throughput performance over existing Rajant BreadCrumbs, is being used at the operation to support applications for mine production systems, including proximity detection, fatigue management and teleremote drilling.

It is the first deployment in South Africa with Anglo American.

“Rajant has always been the leader in industrial wireless mesh networking,” Reyno Eksteen, BU Head, Scan RF Projects, a Rajant Kinetic Mesh distributor, says. “With the substantial increase in performance of the new generation Peregrine BreadCrumbs, our customers now can support applications that require more bandwidth. Because all Rajant BreadCrumb models are fully backward compatible, it makes migrating to the latest higher-capacity radio nodes much easier while still redeploying the existing BreadCrumbs to other parts of the network to get the most out of the customer’s investment.”

After successful implementation, Anglo American confirmed a considerable increase in capacity of the Rajant Peregrine within its pit network, enabling the company to become more innovative by introducing technologies in areas of its operation where it was previously impossible, Rajant says. This allows the mine to scale the overall network with the operation’s demands quickly, bringing much higher bandwidth closer within areas of its pit production environment.

The new Peregrine BreadCrumb provides impressive performance with the same robust hardware, which can withstand the harsh conditions of an open-pit mine, Rajant added.

The Peregrine offers multiple MIMO radio interfaces, high throughput and enhanced security performance with up to 256-QAM and 80 MHz channels. It is part of Rajant’s initiative to develop deeply integrated solutions that securely combine data from connected people, vehicles, machines and sensors, with machine learning.

“This data combination unlocks the benefits of process optimisation, digital twins, predictive analytics, condition-based maintenance, augmented reality and virtual reality while improving worker safety,” Rajant says.

The Peregrine is interoperable with all BreadCrumb radio nodes to expand market capabilities for industries like mining, rail, shipping ports, public safety, agriculture and heavy construction. It is fortified with rugged, environmentally-sealed enclosures and supports several robust cryptographic options for data and MAC-address encryption and per-hop, per-packet authentication.

Scalable to hundreds of mobile, high-bandwidth nodes, the Peregrine enables data, voice, and video applications.

(photo credit: Anglo American)

Rajant launches global LTE radio, personnel and asset tracking solution at MINExpo

Communications in mining, IoT, Mining events, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , , , , ,

Rajant Corporation, the provider of Kinetic Mesh® wireless networks, has announced two new products on day one of MINExpo 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The latest enhancements include the addition of a global LTE radtio to its fourth-generation BreadCrumb® Peregrine product line, and the launch of MeshTracer a software-based personnel and asset tracking solution that, Rajant says, can monitor Rajant BreadCrumbs, AeroScout tags and any Wi-Fi device that uses a static MAC address.

The addition of the global LTE radio means that with one 2.4 GHz radio, two 5 GHz radios and LTE, the enhanced Peregrine can provide up to 2.633 Gb/s of aggregated capacity, the company says.

Geoff Smith, EVP of Sales and Marketing for Rajant, says: “Improving the safety and productivity of mining operations is the by-product of Rajant Kinetic Mesh. It is the only industrial wireless network enabling machine-to-machine connectivity and mobility in markets like open-pit and underground mining”

“Adding an LTE client now allows all mining companies that have invested in LTE to leverage that infrastructure while benefiting from the mine-wide mission-critical coverage Kinetic Mesh provides.

He added: “Tracking personnel and assets is mandatory underground, making Rajant’s latest MeshTracer a logical addition to the BreadCrumb portfolio. Adding the ability to track BreadCrumbs both above and below ground allows a mine to observe areas for process improvements. Finally, supporting Wi-Fi devices allows for two-way communication in emergencies.”

Chris Acton, General Manager for Acubis Technologies, the largest Rajant Kinetic Mesh “Premier Partner” in Australasia, said: “We are ecstatic with the performance we have seen in the new Peregrines that we have deployed throughout Australia. Our customers see as much as four times the increase in capacity over the previous generation.

“Rajant provides unique value by maintaining backward compatibility with previous generation BreadCrumbs deployed in the field. This allows sites to upgrade between models knowing that there will be no loss to communications.”

He added: “We also have many customers in Australia who have invested in LTE solutions but are experiencing coverage and data upload issues. These customers are very anxious to deploy the latest LTE-equipped Peregrines. And being able to now track BreadCrumbs as well as personnel above and below ground provides critical new benefits for our customers.’’