Published in March 2005 Australian Longwall Magazine

NLT is a technology leader in underground digital systems and devices, and recently set up a Brisbane office to supply its product range and mining solutions more fully to the Australian market.

Since 2000, NLT has invested substantially in technology development, both in lighting systems with digital devices and establishing the Northern Light Digital Network, while achieving a growth rate that approaches 20% annually. This growth has been mostly through its operations in North America, Europe, and Latin America.

The company manufactures the very successful Northern Light cap lamp system that received Australian statutory approval in March 2004, and is distributed in Australia through Austdac. In the US coal mining sector, Northern Light cap lamps are widely used, and are standard for Mine Safety and Health Administration mine inspectors.

The company’s core expertise is in three main areas: cap lamp lighting systems; a variety of ancillary applications – such as tracking and voice radio; and ethernet network design.

Rose says he wants to offer these applications on one backbone, integrating both software applications and hardware devices. To date, no mine has the complete NLT system in place, but three mines have installed parts of the overall system. A machine monitoring component is being integrated at a Canadian potash mine, along with an upgrade to Northern Light Digital Network.

The full system will exist in Australia in one of four places by June 2005, Rose says. (NLT has put in tenders for four local jobs.)

Two main components form the foundation of NL Technologies’ networking approach. The first of these is the Northern Light Digital Network, a robust fibre-optic network that can accommodate large volumes of data such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), monitoring and control, computer applications, and video. Rose says the digital system has the ability to support all the voice, data and video requirements of the modern mine, whether wired or wireless.

“The Northern Light Digital philosophy leverages the power of industrial ethernet with all the requisite hardening for the mine environment,” Rose says.

“Typically, investments in fibre optic cable have already been made, and the components of the Northern Light Digital Network and associated software applications plug right in. Once this holistic investment decision is made, the mine operator can easily deploy a myriad of safety and productivity applications to realise the digital mine vision.”

Rose outlines the five key principle design criteria established for Northern Light Digital.

* Standards: The foundation of a network’s success relies on the ability to adapt, interface, and comply with other applications and devices. NLT recognises this is accomplished by adopting a known standard – ethernet.

* Modular upgrades: A modular design approach with standardised units provides room to grow without expensive re-work. The modular node approach allows for a mine to take advantage of new best-in-class technologies as they emerge. Software is upgraded as new applications are conceived and developed, and can be added with minimum cost.

* Flexibility: In the course of expansion within a mine, the Northern Light Digital Network’s capabilities adapt and expand to meet the new requirements. NLT’s objective is to incorporate legacy systems into the Digital Network.

* Reliability: NLT knows what it takes to design and build technology to survive the rigours of underground mining. The Northern Light Digital Network is no exception.

* Avoid obsolescence: By virtue of the modular approach and standards-based design, the technology investment is protected from premature obsolescence and enables a smooth upgrade path to new, proven technologies.

The cap lamp is the second core technology and is the means by which miners are connected to the network. The cap lamps are fitted with the ability to accommodate an array of neat devices, such as the Northern Light Digital Messenger, a two-way internet protocol-based communications device, providing messaging, paging, location tracking, and emergency warning. Similarly, lamps with digital radio frequency identification tags provide the opportunity to track the location of personnel to facilitate evacuation procedures and provide proximity warnings to heavy equipment operators.

The two-way connectivity of Messenger offers a multitude of functions and is truly powerful, particularly with an ethernet backbone in place, Rose says.

The versatility of the digital lamp has led to the collaborative development (with Australian company Minesite Technologies) of the Northern Light personal electronic device (PED) cap lamp. Australian and United States approvals for coal mines are expected imminently for this integrated offering.

“We have sold two jobs incorporating the PED module technology with our cap lamps to operations in eastern Canada and Sweden,” Rose says.

During the first half of 2005, NLT expects to enhance the Messenger cap lamp to allow the cap lamp wearer to initiate messages on top of sending simple acknowledgements. Further, personnel working underground using ruggedised handheld personal computers or personal digital assistants will be able to gain access to a wide range of information from the mine’s own network.

“If you can run all these applications on a common integrated system you then know where the miners are, know where the machines are, know what the environmental conditions are, and you can control the ventilation relative to those conditions.”

This concept, “ventilation on demand”, is starting to pique the interests of a number of operators, thanks to the tremendous opportunity for substantial energy savings.

In the US, Rose has observed clear trends in how mines are approaching the integration of digital technologies. Mines in western US states are innovating by deploying IP solutions that integrate tagging of people, machines, environmental monitoring, and two-way messaging, to achieve their ventilation control objectives.

One way in which NLT is different from its competitors is its commitment to open IP standards; Northern Light Digital Network facilitates and enables the deployment of evolving technologies and standards aimed at providing a future-proof investment.

“Open standards and development of interfaces ensures support for legacy systems, protecting technology investments that are not near the end of their product life,” Rose says.