Wireless Sensing and Tracking in Harsh, Low-Light Underground Mines

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Mining plays a key role in Canadian economy. Approximately 375,000 people across Canada work in themining and mineral processing industries. Mining contributed $57 billion to Canada's Gross Domestic Product(GDP) in 2014. However, the mining sector still remains unsafe. Mining workers are exposed to five timehigher occupational hazards than those in other industrial sectors. Although catastrophic mine accidents, suchas the Benxihu colliery mine disaster that killed 1,549 people and the Courrieres disaster in France that killed1,099 people, understandably make the headlines, many smaller incidents remain unnoticed. Often, rescueoperations take long time due to the very nature of mines, as evidenced in the 2010 Chilean mine disaster when33 miners were trapped for 69 days. As a result, the recent 'MINER' act introduced several mine safetyrequirements. PBE, the world leader in mine safety equipment, is keen on providing integrated solutions forsafety, communications and monitoring for mines around the world. This project proposes to significantlyimprove communication and tracking solutions for personnel, vehicles and, explosives in mines incollaboration with PBE. In this project, a wireless sensor network will be developed to reliably collect data inrough, irregular underground tunnel environments that dynamically changes. Different types of data fromRFID, video and infrared sensors will be fused and intelligent algorithms will be developed to accurately locatemultiple targets in real time. Special algorithms will be developed to characterize underground radio channelsand to identify miners in low light using video and infrared cameras. The whole system will be designed to befault tolerant and maintain basic operations to help rescue operations in case of disasters. Besides bringingtechnical and scientific advances in fields of vital importance to Canada, the proposed project will also train anumber of highly qualified personnel in electrical engineering, telecommunications, mine safety and securityrelated areas that are crucial to Canada and the world.