The increasing use of the ImPact digital network for two-way communications and tracking, particularly in Australia and the USA, has seen requirements for a single hardware and software platform to manage the number of installations grow enormously, Mine Site Technologies’ Denis Kent said.
“Through a highly sophisticated product the ICA simplifies the actual installation, maintenance and ongoing expansion of the digital network and its associated applications and devices,” he said.
To simplify both onsite and remote support, this consolidation into a single appliance has proved essential in ensuring the high levels of availability required by mine operators and their IT departments. The ICA monitors and delivers the information from Mine Site Technologies' voice, tracking and data acquisition products to mine personnel.
The latest version of ICA expands system functionality and management tools to allow more customised searches and report generation to suit the requirements of mine production and maintenance personnel.
The company’s user interface modules provide graphical representations of the data in the system. These modules communicate with the functional modules to retrieve the information for display.
The first of the three key user interface modules is MineView, which is a web application that provides an integrated end-user view of the data in the system.
This features a map view of the mine that provides scrolling and zooming when locating personnel and assets; and real-time and historical views of the data from the functional modules, which includes tracking of personnel and equipment, voice communications, vehicle diagnostics, vehicle production and proximity detection events.
The second module is the Sign Controller, which enables tracking information to be displayed on large-format LED signs to display different content on each sign installed, such as a scrolling list of personnel and assets in a particular zone and in range of an access point; a scrolling list of personnel and assets in a particular zone, regardless of whether they are in range of an access point; and the count of personnel and the count of vehicles in a nominated zone.
The third is an E-Tagboard, which is a web application that displays the current location of particular asset types in nominated zones in a single view, which continually updates.
Functional modules provide the core processing capabilities on the appliance. The user interface modules contact these functional modules to determine what to display and configure such functions as remote backup, network monitoring, device configuration (for example, voice-over internet protocol MinePhone and radio-frequency identification tags), alerting and alarm set-ups, and vehicle intelligence platform reports and alarms.
Location-based alerts and events can also be configured.
