1. REMOTE ASSET TRACKING SYSTEM
500 feet below ground
In UCIL’s Narwa Mine
- An R & D Pilot Project
Commissioned on 31st March 2012
at
Narwapahar Uranium Mines
Uranium Corporation of India Limited
October 2012

2. ASSET TRACKING IN
UNDERGROUND MINE - WHY
 Fast track management of emergency situations
by voice communication using IP phones.
 Faster management of breakdowns to minimize
downtime of various mine equipment.
 Better monitoring of mine truck trips.
 Generation of real time data for industrial
engineering studies for better planning.

3. ASSET TRACKING IN UNDERGROUND
MINE - WHY
 Accessing of men and
equipment in all
locations of the mine
by standard hardwired
telephones is not
possible
 Fast track management
of emergency
situations by voice
communication using IP
phones

4. CONTROL ROOM

5. Introduction
 This is an R & D project of UCIL in collaboration with M/S
TCS.
 The system has been installed at the 4th level (140 m below
surface).
 It has three components, viz.
 Tracking of Vehicles & Key Personnel.
 Voice Communication between Key Personnel.
 Production Monitoring by Trip Counting.

7. System Capability
 The system uses a Wi-Fi based tracking system for
 real-time and historical tracking of
 Underground Trackless Equipment.
 Key Personnel.
 Wireless voice communication between key
personnel in Underground using IP Phones.

8. Wi-Fi Access Point

9. System Capability
 The system uses RFID based tracking system for
 Counting of number of trips of ore dumped at the
Grizzly by different Mine Trucks.
 Time Stamping of Dumping of Ore by Mine Trucks.

10. RFID Reader
RFID Antenna
RFID Antenna
Grizzly

11. System Components
 A Control Room in underground.
 A Wi-Fi network in underground.
 An RFID network underground.
 The system uses OFC cables for long distance data
transmission.

12. Underground Control Room
It has the following installations
 Server for storage and processing of time stamped data.
 A graphic user interface showing
 Location of mine equipment
 Location of IP Phones (used by Key personnel)
It is connected through OFC cables with
 Wi-Fi Access Points.
 RFID Readers.

13. Wi-Fi Access Point

14. Underground Wi-Fi Network
It consisting of
 ‘Wi-Fi Access Points’ at various locations consisting of
 LIU (Light Interface Unit)
 Media Converter
 Wi-Fi Antenna near Access Points (Range = 75 m)
 Wi-Fi tags mounted on mine equipment
 IP Phones for voice communication

15. IP Phones
CHARGER

16. Wi-FiTag

17. Wi-FiTag

18. RFIDTag
Wi-FiTag

19. Underground RFID Network
It consisting of
 An RFID Reader near grizzly at 4th level where
Mine Trucks are unloaded.
 A pair of RFID antenna (Range = 3.0 m)
 To detect presence of mine truck in close proximity.
 To stamp mine truck unloading time.
 RFID tags (passive) mounted on mine trucks

20. RFID Reader
RFID Antenna RFID Antenna

21. RFIDTag

22. RFIDTag

23. RFIDTag
Wi-FiTag

24. System Components
A Wi-Fi network
 Wi-Fi would be primarily used for tracking of assets, voice communication
between key miners and the control room on zoned basis.
Access Points: A wireless access point
(WAP) is a device that allows wireless
devices to connect to a wired network
using Wi-Fi
WCS: Wireless Control System (WCS)
includes tools for wireless LAN planning
and design, location tracking, and wireless
LAN systems
configuration, monitoring, and
management.
MSE: Mobility Services Engine (MSE) is
an appliance-based solution that supports
a suite of software services to provide
centralized and scalable service delivery.
API: An application programming
interface (API) is a specification
intended to be used as an interface by
software components to communicate
with each other.
Application Data Storage:SQL server
2008 is used as database in this solution.

25. System Components
An RFID network
Individual MT trip count data are gathered by RFID system.
RFID Reader: RFID readers use RF
waves for communication and therefore
must have one or more antennas. The
antenna may be externally connected or in
the same housing or enclosure as the
RFID reader electronics.
RFID Tag: The tag transmits information
to the reader via antenna, and the reader
converts the incoming radio waves into a
form that can be read by a computer
system.
RFID middleware: RFID Middleware
communicates with the device; filters
redundant data in real time, logs the
filtered data along with a time-stamp to a
database .The logged data is utilized by
the application to create reports of trip
count for individual MTs.

26. Application Development Technology
The following table describes all the software details
used to develop the Remote Asset Tracking
application.
SL
No
Software Item Specification
1 Operating System Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
2 Database Software Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
Standard
3 Development Software Microsoft visual studio 2010 using
vb, asp.net
4 Documentation Software Microsoft Office 2010

32. RFIDTag

33. Benefits from the System
 All these will help in
 Fast track management of emergency situations by
voice communication using IP phones.
 Faster management of breakdowns to minimize
downtime of various mine equipment.
 Better monitoring of mine truck trips.
 Generation of real time data for industrial
engineering studies for better planning.

35. Thank you