Sagar Chandra Archives - International Mining

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 Corporation, the provider of Kinetic Mesh® wireless networks, and Brazil-based NEVIL ELETRO MECANICA are, they say, improving safety and efficiency with teleoperation for dozing and heavy equipment.

At MINExpo 2021, September 13-15, in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Rajant and NEVIL will share success stories of deployments in iron ore mines in Brazil and demonstrate the collaborative solution for mining.

“Separating people from the risks and adversities inherent to mine site work areas is paramount,” NEVIL’s CEO, Fabio Neves, says. “Rajant enables reliable and redundant connectivity to NEVIL’s teleoperation software and controls, making possible one operator to control multiple dozers, excavators, loaders, and trucks simultaneously. Mining personnel are conducting heavy equipment operations from remote operation areas with consistency, efficiency, productivity, and safety.”

Rajant VP of Sales, Americas, Sagar Chandra, adds: “Scalability is a shared capability between Rajant and NEVIL. As location landscape, environment and conditions change, Rajant and NEVIL dynamically adapt to flex with customer’s mission-critical teleoperations, autonomy and mobility demands.

“As Rajant’s unique Kinetic Mesh BreadCrumbs with InstaMesh® scale and expand, connectivity strengthens across the mine site. Communication of voice, video, and data is delivered with high bandwidth, low latency and security. One such success story was done by Rajant distributor SiTech Brazil and the simultaneous teleoperation of 17 heavy construction units.”

Deployed in more than 230 of the largest open-pit and underground mines globally, fully mobile V2X/M2M was pioneer by Rajant and has a heritage of maintaining interoperability with existing BreadCrumb wireless nodes with new product releases, the company said.