AeroScout uses RFID to enhance safety in Australian mine
18 September, 2008
category: RFID
AeroScout Inc. announced this week that they are partnering with Mine Site Technologies to bring greater safety and efficiency to the operations of Beltana Coal Mine, Australia’s most productive mines. The mine employs 200 workers and maintains 50 diesel vehicles underground.
All of Beltana Coal Mine’s workers wear Mine Site Integrated Communications Cap Lamps whenever they are underground. The battery packs on the caps are integrated with AeroScout’s Active RFID tags, which enables their location to be tracked over the mine’s Wi-Fi network.
The real-time location of every worker can be viewed, or searched for, on a map using AeroScout MobileView software. In the event of an emergency, AeroScout’s solution can also be used to automate the muster process, ensuring that all workers in the mine are quickly and accurately accounted for at specific refuge points. The vehicles are tracked with self contained tags as well.
“With AeroScout’s technology integrated into our ICCL cap lamps, we can bring greater safety to miners without encumbering them with additional equipment,” said Denis Kent, business development manager at Mine Site. “Underground workers will always have their cap lamps with them, so it only makes sense to use that same equipment to enable quicker emergency response and to automate the mustering process.”
