It seems like hardly a week has gone by lately without a miner tragedy or a near-tragedy in the news. As the media shines its light on the mining industry, it’s clear that mining communications is ripe for modernization.
Today most mines have hard-wired telephone systems. So when an explosion or a fire cuts a phone line, communications throughout the rest of the mine are cut off. Traditional radio and cellular signals cannot serve this industry because of line-of-sight limitations.
But a few companies are pitching other communications solutions to members of Congress as the government searches for ways to improve mine safety and rescue possibilities. Imagine for a moment that rescuers could communicate with trapped miners via voice and text messaging.
A Canadian technologist says stop imagining, because technology that could provide these types of communications within a mine already exists. Joe Miller says his communication technology is based on sending low-frequency digital magnetic transmissions through the Earth, skyscrapers, subways, tunnels, oceans and more. He says his emergency broadcast network is a “fail-safe pre- and post-disaster, digital, wireless, early-warning, emergency and evacuation network and is capable of sending two-way voice and text communications through pretty much anything.”
Born of the underground mining industry, Miller said his technology evolved throughout two decades of research and design focused on emergency warning and rescue of miners. In 1991, Miller said he sent an Earth-penetrating signal to depths of 9,000 feet.
“This technology is not radio,” explains Miller. “It doesn’t have the shortfalls of radio, which is a line-of-sight technology. (Emergency broadcast network) technology has the ability to penetrate the Earth by sending vital information through the Earth for several miles or through steel and concrete buildings. Rock, concrete, steel, debris and dust cannot stop the EBN communications signal.”
Vital Alert Communications Inc.’s EBN technology consists of a transmitter, Windows-compatible software and personal receivers for each individual connected to the system. Voice and text messages can be sent from wireless phones, or laptop computers can be used to send text messages. Preprogrammed warning messages can be sent to an individual or entire groups.
Miller has been pitching his technology to the underground mining community for years, but says his ideas fell on deaf ears until recently. Without laws that force the mining industry to modernize their communications systems, there seemed to be no market for Miller’s creation.
Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy. Miller said he realized then that his technology had potential in rescue operations beyond mining. In 2002, he set up Rosseau, Ontario-based Vital Alert, providing engineering for advanced technology systems and solutions for emergency rescue operations where 100-percent communications is essential.
“Sept. 11 was a communications disaster,” said Miller. “Cell sites were lost when the towers went down; communications were cut off. Radios and walkie-talkies were useless. There’s not one operating radio system out there that can guarantee it will go through concrete, metal, debris and dust, and that you will have 100-percent communications 100 percent of the time,” Miller said.
Miller said he has an exclusive developmental license option agreement for his technology with Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and operated by a private contractor.
Mike Mosser, a technology portfolio manager for the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, said lots of developers are coming to the lab with solutions that are in various stages of approval and commercialization. Mosser explained that the Mine Safety Health Administration reviews applications from companies seeking to provide mining companies with communications systems. If the agency doesn’t give its approval, the technology doesn’t become a choice for mining companies.
“The mining industry would like purely wireless communications systems,” said Mosser. “Current law states only that mines must have a communications system, it doesn’t say what kind.”
So even though most mines are using antiquated wired phone systems, Mosser said, “they are complying with the law.”
Mosser added that he believes the laws are about to be changed.
Miller said he’s preparing to present MSHA with his technology and has been in talks with Heinz Corp., an in-building wireless infrastructure services company owned by WPCS International Inc., which offers project engineering services for specialty communications systems.
“This technology is very promising,” said Jim Heinz, president of Heinz Corp. and executive vice president of WPCS International. “This is on the cutting edge.”
