Australia-based Cohda Wireless has applied its vehicle positioning solution to the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia to drive safety and productivity. The V2X (Vehicle-To-Everything) technology connects vehicles with each other and roadside infrastructure to create a cooperative and intelligent transport environment.
“Cohda’s V2X-Locate allows all equipped mobile fleet, fixed plant, and personnel to be reliably tracked in real-time to sub-meter accuracy in a GNSS-denied environment, to prevent incidents and assist in emergency evacuations, and to enable traffic management and schedule optimization,” explained Russell Kennett, manager of Underground Technology at Oyu Tolgoi.
Cohda Wireless CEO Dr. Paul Gray said that the widespread adoption of connected, intelligent transport solutions in the mining sector will greatly reduce the risk of injury or death and will also drive productivity gains.
“The system can integrate and manage location data from multiple sensor types with sub-meter accuracy throughout the mine site and is a significant improvement on using a combination of disparate collision avoidance systems across the mining environment, as is usually the case,” he said.
“When you have hundreds of vehicles and personnel operating in close proximity underground, a meter matters! And whilst the prevention of injury and death is always the top priority, we also know that the ability to visualize, optimize and monitor vehicles brings significant operational benefits and efficiencies.”
More than 200 mining vehicles of all types at the mine are being fitted with Cohda’s XBU-V specially adapted On-Board units, which connect vehicles to each other and to XBU-I Road-Side Units that are installed in mine tunnels. Additionally, 2,000-plus personnel will use V2X-Locate compatible cap lamps so that the collective system can use Time-of-Flight analysis of wireless signals to resolve spatial locations.
Mining vehicles are fitted with a human-machine interface that will notify operators to warn them of potential collisions by enabling superior awareness and reaction. The system supports EMESRT Level 7 (Alert) and partial Level 8 (Advise) controls with Full Level 8 controls and Level 9 (Intervention) controls on the Cohda product roadmap.
Source: Cohda Wireless