Providing Reliable Communications in Rugged Environments

In the dangerous world of mining, rigorous tools are required to ensure reliable communications and safety. To meet these demands, CSC developed the Industrial Wireless Service (IWS), which enables real-time communications in harsh environments. The service is currently being used in several mining operations in Australia and can also be applied to other industries.

Surface mining is a demanding task, involving massive trucks, complex drilling systems and multiple logistical challenges. CSC created IWS to operate in severe conditions by combining best-of-breed technology with our consulting, deployment, communications and managed support expertise.

Reliability in extreme conditions

By nature, mining is hard work, often taking place in isolated locations under extreme temperatures. Making things more difficult, mining companies are increasingly moving to remote operations centers and advanced systems such as automated drilling rigs and driverless haul trucks. In such environments, good, reliable communications systems are essential.

Mining also requires large, expensive equipment that needs constant monitoring. “A mining truck can be millions of dollars. They need to know where that truck is, and is it running efficiently, and operating safely,” says Murray Wales, a principal communications consultant at CSC.

Wales led the CSC team that developed IWS as a consulting and systems integration service in which we identify specific connectivity requirements. After assessing what systems are required to operate efficiently under severe conditions, we design and implement a rugged wireless solution that meets those demanding needs.

Traditionally, mines have used a mix of dedicated wireless networks to link vehicles, equipment, systems and people. These systems have tended to be an incompatible mish-mash of dedicated wireless networks, and those legacy networks are no longer sufficient to meet today’s demands for increased production, safety and efficiency.

IWS decouples disparate implementations into a single wireless infrastructure design that ensures application traffic delivery at the right prioritization level. The service enables mining environments to integrate with any existing IP-based enterprise campus applications, both local and remote, for highly reliable management of field operations. It also seamlessly ties critical field-based communications into enterprise indoor sites and applications, whether those sites are local, across the country or even across the globe.

Exciting technology

Adapting technology used by the U.S. military in battlefield deployments, Wales and his team focused on developing a solution that allows companies to monitor, control and integrate both personnel and machinery, ranging from gauging equipment status to assessing driver fatigue. Colin Wong, CSC’s lead developer for the solution, says, “This is very exciting technology. It will save lives and provide our customers with the capacity to exceed their current production.”

IWS reduces operational costs by simplifying systems management on a single, unified wireless communications infrastructure for all applications. The constant monitoring of fleet equipment and personnel helps avoid repairs and downtime, reducing maintenance costs.

What’s more, IWS’s flexible architecture provides future-proofing that lets clients add new capabilities as business requirements evolve. Finally, safety increases through the proactive monitoring of potentially life-threatening situations.

To address the need for pervasive wireless connectivity, we developed the IWS solution in collaboration with Motorola and 3D-P, a mining technology specialist. The wireless broadband solution is a wide ‘pipe’ capable of carrying large amounts of data from the heavy vehicle fleet to fixed assets such as a borehole system. The IWS system also includes a ‘skinny’ pipe that carries digital voice along the periphery of a mine. In addition, a digital two-way radio enables connectivity to remote enterprise sites.

The solution leverages GPS technology for equipment location and uses advanced Motorola data protocols to achieve a higher degree of reliability than traditional Wi-Fi or 3G technology. For the mining-specific application, the CSC team worked with 3D-P, using their Intelligent End Points to integrate legacy and IP-based applications necessary for management of the mining operations.

IWS consists of up-front assessment services to determine specific client requirements based on geography, number and type of applications desired and performance needs. Our assessment team uses these to modify the base architectural design to meet specific customer requirements. Once implementation is complete, IWS also provides ongoing management of the infrastructure.

Resilient communications

Mark Hayes, a CSC regional manager based in Australia, says, “The reactions from customers to our IWS service have been fantastic. Some customers have adopted it as their standard for deployment throughout their mine sites, and others have told us of incredible productivity gains they’ve got by being able to monitor what is happening out at the coal face.”

IWS can be applied to any industry that requires resilient communications in harsh outdoor conditions. For example, the IWS architecture can be applied to the transportation industry, where aircraft can run applications to exchange mission-critical flight data, with systems having the ability to provide quick responses in emergency situations.

Wales says, “We’re looking now at implementing IWS across the whole supply chain. And obviously, outside of the mining industry, airports, ports themselves, transport systems, universities. We think there’s a whole range of environments where IWS will bring an advantage to our customers.”