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

矿业在加拿大经济中起着关键作用。加拿大大约有37.5万人在采矿和矿物加工行业工作。2014年，采矿业为加拿大的国内生产总值（GDP）贡献了570亿美元。然而，采矿业仍然不安全。采矿工人面临的职业危害是其他工业部门工人的五倍。虽然灾难性的矿难，如造成1549人死亡的本溪湖矿难和造成1099人死亡的法国Courrieres矿难，可以理解地成为头条新闻，但许多较小的事故却没有引起人们的注意。通常，由于矿井的性质，救援行动需要很长时间，2010年智利矿难就证明了这一点，当时33名矿工被困69天。因此，最近的“MINER”法案引入了几项矿山安全要求。PBE是全球矿山安全设备的领导者，致力于为全球矿山提供安全、通信和监控的综合解决方案。该项目建议与PBE合作，显著改善地雷人员、车辆和爆炸物的通信和跟踪解决方案。在本项目中，将开发无线传感器网络，以可靠地收集动态变化的粗糙，不规则的地下隧道环境中的数据。来自mrfid、视频和红外传感器的不同类型的数据将被融合，智能算法将被开发出来，以实时准确地定位多个目标。将开发特殊算法来描述地下无线电通道，并使用视频和红外摄像机识别低光下的矿工。整个系统将被设计为容错和维持基本操作，以便在发生灾害时帮助救援行动。除了在对加拿大至关重要的领域带来技术和科学进步外，拟议中的项目还将在电气工程、电信、矿山安全和安保相关领域培养一批对加拿大和世界至关重要的高素质人才。

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.