Published in September 2009 Australian Longwall Magazine

Long discussed but not yet ready for implementation in longwall mines, collision avoidance and proximity detection technology was the subject of recent workshops held by Queensland’s Mines Inspectorate, where prospective suppliers met with coal companies.

Of 17 mining fatalities in the state in the past five years, six were directly attributable to vehicle-to-vehicle collisions or vehicle-to-pedestrian collisions, workshop organiser and senior mines inspector Tilman Rasche said.

“Three other vehicle-related deaths could have been averted if vehicle-based proximity detection technology had been used,” he said.

“Three of the four mine fatalities in Queensland in 2008-09 involved vehicle accidents and this reflects the worrying trend of mine fatalities in other mining states.”

With no industry-wide acceptance of any system to reduce the vehicle-related death toll, the series of four workshops had 10 suppliers presenting their surface and underground solutions.

The workshops not only covered the technology, but also looked at mining equipment design for its installation, and at training, as vehicle accidents can often be caused by people who ignore procedures in the first place.

For longwall mining, Becker NCS is making inroads. BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal will kick off an underground trial of Becker’s fifth-generation collision avoidance system in the first quarter of next year.

The CAS 530 system has been upgraded to meet requirements identified over the past year in Australia. Becker managing director Tony Napier said these included near and far field capabilities for proximity detection, support for accident investigation by recording all data, and easier yet more effective warning options.

CAS 530 is also designed to have network and data transfer capabilities integrated with other communication technologies such as leaky feeder, WiFi and tagging systems.

With the workshops designed to inform mining companies of what technology is out there, suppliers were aiming to uncover what mines are looking for.

Napier said he preferred mines to review their needs and select a solution that best addressed these.

“Six months ago we decided to defer the approvals on our current CAS – which would do the CAS function nicely,” he said.

“That was done as we identified that while CAS was important, by integrating our solutions better we could offer so much more to a client. It is this solution that we will be promoting and supplying. It solves the CAS need for a client, but will also greatly enhance safety and productivity as well.”

Mine Site Technologies’ Denis Kent told Australian Longwall Magazine it was ultimately up to mines to do a risk assessment and see what technology could give them a better advantage.

MST’s collision avoidance technology is set to have its first full installation this month at Xstrata’s underground zinc operations at Mt Isa.

For the coal mining sector, Kent said one of the biggest challenges was getting the intrinsic safety approvals while maintaining the full functionality of the non-IS version.

He said, realistically, full IS approval of MST’s system was about

12 months away.

The system features two alert zones around a vehicle, providing one alert when another vehicle is 150m away and a higher level alert when it is within 15m.

Kent said the two separate alerts had been designed to minimise the risk of annoying or de-sensitising the driver.

Discussions he had had with coal companies indicated they were interested in not just putting proximity-detecting radio frequency identification tags on all the miners to increase safety, but also using that same RFID tag for general tracking of people and machines for improved mine management.

“The immediate benefit they need is to control the risk around vehicles, but what other benefits flow from it I think will guide which way they choose to go,” Kent said.

A hurdle for the implementation of any system is how the equipment can be bolted on to the vehicles.

Kent said for the medium to long term, it was important to get involved with the OEMs so they could have spaces in their designs to fit the proximity detection equipment.

He said machine cabs were getting cluttered with radios and other gear, making retrofitting more difficult.

NLT Australia managing director Tim Haight said the coal industry was looking to work together with suppliers to come up with a solution.

From the workshops, NLT is moving towards a proximity detection trial underground by the end of the year.

The company’s wireless access points, tags and messenger caplamps already have IS approval and Haight said the radio frequency and WiFi technologies, together with redundant hardware, provided a solid solution for proximity detection.

NLT recently received IS approval for a miniature version of its WAP after Joy Mining Machinery enquired about obtaining a WAP small enough to place on the shearer. A number of systems with the technology are being deployed or have already been installed.

Haight said he did not expect progress on collision avoidance technologies for longwall mining to be made overnight.

“I really think proximity detection is going to be taken in steps, simple to begin with, then refined, then adopted more widely through the mines,” he said.

Supplier Blue Glue, which offers RFID-based collision avoidance technology, aims to expand into the underground mining market as it swells its capabilities for surface clients.

Blue Glue sales and marketing director Alan Jones said the workshops were positive, but it was clear the industry needed help.

He said vehicle-to-person avoidance and heavy machinery to light vehicle avoidance was where 90% of issues occurred and Blue Glue had a simple solution that focused on this risk factor.

In his view, coal companies attending the workshops had decided they must act before industry guidelines are established. This involves sites first defining their needs, then sourcing a suitable vendor.

Camera viewing solutions supplier for open cut operations LSM Technologies also presented at the workshops.

LSM managing director Peter Woodford said senior site executives and other mining company representatives were looking for guidelines and direction on what they should

be doing in regards to operator visibility issues.

He did not expect specific legislative measures tackling mining vehicle accidents to emerge and used the example that personal protection equipment such as helmets and steel-capped boots were not required under specific law, although they fell under duty-of-care provisions.

While PPE encompasses known control measures, Woodford saidArticle continues, click here.