Epiroc’s Mobilaris Situational Awareness solution can now be utilised at underground and surface mines.
For over 70 years, Epiroc has been a leading original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to the Australian mining industry.
The secret to its long-standing success? Always innovating its offerings.
In keeping up with recent industry trends, Epiroc is focused on three key technological areas: automation, electrification and digitalisation.
The company believes it is these focal points that will strengthen safety and productivity, while lowering carbon emissions and reducing total operating costs.
That’s why Epiroc created Blast Support, a next-generation safety solution for surface mining.
The digital decision-support tool is designed to ensure safe blasting without losing time and productivity.
Built with 3D visualisation and open space positioning, Blast Support provides the control room with an overview of everyone’s location on-site before blasting.
“Blast Support can tell in real-time whether an area is safe to blast or not,” Epiroc business line manager digitalisation Andreas Prill told Safe to Work. “It works by assigning Wi-Fi or LTE (long-term evolution) tags to people in the mine and utilising open-space positioning and satellite imaging to create a 3D map of the blast area, including surface blast zones and tunnels.”
Blast Support optimises blast design and execution while ensuring all personnel and equipment are cleared from the area in line with scheduling, reducing time spent looking for personnel prior to blasting.
It also increases productivity and efficiency by monitoring the blast results and performance and optimising the material flow and haulage routes.
Blast Support not only enables the physical safety of workers, but it provides mental stress relief. Encouraging collaboration and coordination by empowering seamless communication, personnel are endowed with real-time information and digital tools. This then allows for clear communication between people in and around the mine, thus helping to reduce stress before and during the blasting process.
Increasing transparency among personnel also lessens the chances or errors or, in worst case scenarios, injuries and fatalities.
Blast Support was created when Epiroc recognised how time-consuming it is for medium- and large-scale mine sites to ensure personnel and assets are clear from the blast.
The OEM took its proven underground safety technology, Mobilaris Situation Awareness, and tailored its features to suit surface mining operations.
Mobilaris Situational Awareness enables the real-time tracking of people, mobile and fixed assets and vehicles while the status of various operations is monitored within the mine. This not only includes 3D mapping of the blast area but also other hazardous areas, such as where there is a risk of rockfall or land slide, increasing alertness and responsiveness along the entire operation.
Mobilaris Situational Awareness allows traffic to be managed in and around risk areas, and alerts can be raised when certain thresholds are reached. Ventilation can also be triggered by machines or personnel entering certain areas, which aims to create a safer and more controlled mine operation.
By combining Blast Support with Mobilaris Situation Awareness, users can send zone-based messages, allowing a site operator to map out danger zones, monitor the position of workers in real-time, and send informed warnings or alarms to those workers to clear the area.
The system is also technology-agnostic, making it compatible with various LTE networks and tags, including Epiroc’s virtual tag, an application for Android smartphones.
“With these two tools, we are able to create different blasting and clearance areas and the system can account for everybody in real-time,” Prill said.
Blast Support being interoperable with third-party communication infrastructure already established at mine sites encourages simple integration and reduced capital expenditure.
“Blast Support reduces time for blasts by ensuring that all personnel and equipment are cleared from the area on time,” Prill said.
“And, most important of all, it provides another layer of safety for workers.”
Epiroc offers various Mobilaris tags that enable the effective localisation of personnel and mobile assets within a Wi-Fi or LTE network.
The position of each tag is determined with special algorithms. The tags can be updated remotely over the air whenever needed and are configured, managed and monitored from the Mobilaris Mining Intelligence platform. This range of products aims to improve safety and productivity throughout the shift.
The portfolio comprises a range of technologies such as Blast Support, Mobilaris Situational Awareness, Mobilaris Emergency Support, Mobilaris Onboard, Mobilaris PocketMine, Mobilaris Shift Support, Mobilaris Event Automation and Mobilaris Network Awareness.
Alongside Blast Support and Mobilaris Situational Awareness, Epiroc’s complete Mobilaris surface offering also includes Emergency Support, PocketMine, Event Automation and tags.
With more than 40 Mobilaris Situational Awareness installations completed globally, Epiroc is bringing its proven solutions from underground mines to create new value for surface mines.
“Epiroc has years of experience in underground blast safety, and with Blast Support we have brought this important technology to the surface,” Prill said.
This feature also appears in the November-December issue of Safe to Work.