ESG Solutions has completed successful testing of the solution with Rajant as the backbone. The companies will start deployment trials in October as the last step in the qualification process, which will potentially benefit both underground and open-pit mining customers.
Tony Butler, technical sales advisor at ESG Solutions, said: "Many mines install microseismic systems for rockburst monitoring and to collect data from microseismic events that can lead to a better understanding of rock mass deformation. ESG Solutions installs microseismic systems that rely on sensors (geophones and/or accelerometers) to record digitised seismic waveforms with our ESG Paladin data acquisition units housed in junction boxes.
"Each Paladin unit must be accurately time-synchronised across the network for optimum seismic event location determination. Data and system timing signals are currently transmitted to and from the Paladin units via fibre-optic networks. To reduce initial system costs and ongoing fibre system maintenance, clients have been asking if it would be possible for our systems to operate on a wireless system."
Butler noted that the ability to provide accurate seismic system timing synchronisation between its Paladin digital microseismic recorder units has been the main hurdle to a wireless approach for microseismic monitoring. However, using the Rajant Kinetic Mesh wireless mesh system, ESG has been able to overcome the time synchronisation issue, and has achieved precision timing protocol (PTP) system timing of 30 microseconds (+/- 10 microseconds for networked Paladins.
He added: "Together, we have demonstrated in the lab that Rajant and ESG can do seven hops through the Kinetic Mesh and maintain extremely accurate system timing."
The development of this solution means that Rajant's wireless network could be considered for microseismic system monitoring in the field for sampling rates of up to 10kHz. According to Butler, the timing accuracy of the system is more than enough for most of the microseismic systems installed that use either geophones or accelerometers, or both.
Darrell Gillis, sales director for Canada at Rajant Corp, said: "Rajant provides voice and data communication at the working face for mines. Deployed in 230+ of the largest mines globally, Rajant's fully mobile, autonomous V2X/M2M for underground mining eliminates the struggles of a voice-only leaky feeder with multi-radio high-speed connectivity. Next-generation technology, such as what ESG provides, has mission-critical requirements to function ‘no fibre required'. Rajant offers a robust, reliable, and redundant alternative to fibre that is easy-to-install and maintain.
"Rajant supports very accurate system timing, which is impossible with a Layer 3 solution, making Rajant Kinetic Mesh unique, not only for mining but for other Iyo applications, such as oil fields and civil projects."
In June, Rajant integrated its BreadCrumb radio system with the Integrated Management System (IMS) developed by Australian network management developer FTP Solutions.
