Subject: Service Science and Innovations, second year of masters degree
Authors: Bojan Jan Javornik, Java Zavratnik, Miha Podplatnik, David Žolger, Urh Kraner
The mining industry plays a significant role in the global industry and economy, representing 6.9% of global GDP. Despite all the financial gains in the sector, health and safety regulations are not up to par. Some of the reasons behind these shortcomings can be attributed to the harsh conditions of working underground or negligence and lack of regulations, especially in one-party system countries. Even though some of the available solutions help miners communicate with the surface, include sensors for potentially hazardous situations, and roughly locate miners in need to a particular part of the mine, they do not allow precise location.
The projects’ PrazneNaGlavo aim is to relieve the pressure of danger at the workplace. This is attained through a comprehensive warning system, which leads coworkers to the person in need of assistance in case of an emergency. Although mining has become a technologically advanced industry and mainly uses mechanization, the whole mining process is still very dependent on the people working underground. This type of work exposes people to many dangers, such as the inhalation of hazardous material (gases, vapors, dust, or mists), dangerous concentration levels of harmful gases (carbon monoxide, methane, and other mine specific gases), cave-ins, landslides, extreme temperatures and in the case of emergency the location of the people in need of assistance.
The smart helmet addresses all these concerns by integrating a sensory warning apparatus that connects all the helmets through a low-power protocol. This “ecosystem’s” main feature is to help locate the person in need of assistance, through triangulations of other helmets, it can pinpoint the person’s location in need. This, in turn, speeds up the intervention as it helps narrow the search area in a situation where minutes and seconds can be crucial. Our solution is also able to collect and upload all the data to the cloud, where it can issue a report on the situation, which helps project managers stay updated on the conditions in the mine and comply with the regulations in place.
