We will be reviewing a robust underground mining monitoring solution that helps resolve these challenges. Lanner provides ISD-O370, an intelligent, rugged industrial IoT gateway designed for industrial applications. The appliance is fanless and compliant with rugged standards such as IP67 and MIL-STD-810G. The device is also optimized for network edge and supports robust next-gen wireless, including 5G and Wi-Fi 6 wireless.

Challenges

Underground mining involves complex tunnels and rooms below the ground surface— environments usually exposed to wide temperatures, dust, gas, heat, and other conditions that typically lead to expensive and dangerous operations. Protecting the personnel and mining equipment during underground mining operations becomes of paramount importance. So, underground miners require ongoing, real-time, and reliable monitoring and communication systems that can help improve their safety and operations.

It is vital to monitor the complex controls and machinery that bring the materials out to the surface. A minor interruption on such mining infrastructure would stop production, costing thousands of dollars. In addition, it is also highly critical to have reliable underground communications and even surveillance systems to improve the safety and well-being of the underground miners.

Still, deploying an underground communications system is not an easy task. It comes with the following challenges:

  • Hostile and extreme environments. Underground mining environments are hostile, not only for the standard consumer-grade IT equipment but also for the personnel. The massive exposure to rock debris, dust, moisture, high temperatures, vibration, explosions, and more— makes accidents an ordinary thing.
  • Communications are challenging. Appliances and data generation devices, such as IoT sensors or video cameras deployed on the field need reliable communications to the ground control center. Wiring an underground tunnel along with its rooms is challenging and expensive. Plus, the wear-and-tear of using a typical IT networking device is much faster than with a rugged industrial device.

The Underground Mine Solution: Industrial IoT Gateway

An industrial IoT gateway (IIoT gateway) bridges the gap between different types of technologies, especially those found in the industrial IT and OT domains. It creates a bridge between OT-based sensors, cameras, or actuators (located on the underground mine) and the IT-based domain, the Internet (or remote IT server). The appliance aggregates the data from the field sources, pre-processes it, translates protocol-based communications, and forwards data to the destination. The destination can receive the IIoT gateway's data and display vital metrics, video feeds, or data analytics with the help of monitoring software. In addition, a highlight (or necessity) of an industrial IoT gateway is its ruggedized and energy-efficient design.

The Intelligent and Rugged Industrial IoT Gateway.

Lanner's ISD-O370 is an intelligent, rugged industrial IoT gateway designed for industrial applications. It is a fanless P67-compliant appliance, which supports 5G and Wi-Fi 6 wireless, and is optimized for IoT, SD-WAN, uCPE, and network edge. The ISD-O370 is capable of connecting various IoT devices, including sensors or video cameras, found in demanding environments such as underground mines.

ISD-O370 Features

  • Robust wireless support. ISD-O370 supports 5G and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.
  • Rugged certifications: CE/FCC class A, UL 62368-1, CB, IP67, MIL-STD-810G.
  • Ethernet and Power over Ethernet. Support for PoE— a technology that allows easier access to low energy consumption via Ethernet cables. The appliance comes with four GbE LAN and two GbE POE+.
  • Operating temperature: Fanless technology allows wide operating temperature ranging -40°C ~ 70ºC
  • TPM support. ISD-O370 onboards Onboard TPM 2.0. The Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM 2.0) is a hardware security standard for microcontrollers.
  • Processor. Intel® Atom® C3000 (Denverton)—an extended temperature CPU.

One of the highlights of ISD-O370 is its compliance with IP67 (Ingress Protection 67) and MIL-STD-810G. Equipment certified with IP67 is 100% protected from solid objects like sand, dirt, or dust and has been tested to work (for at least 30 minutes) while under 15-100 cms below water. Another essential certification is the Military Standard, MIL-STD-810G. Such standard tests various environmental conditions, from high/low temperatures, rain, wind, humidity, rust, explosive atmosphere, shock, gunfire vibration, and more. 

The second major highlight of ISD-O370 is its next-generation wireless connectivity capabilities. The appliance comes with expansion for both 5G and Wi-Fi6 (via M.2 sockets) with optimized signal reception.

Benefits

The rugged industrial IoT gateway provides a solid foundation for a successful monitoring and communication solution. First, an IIoT gateway operates in hostile and extreme mining environments. Although a commercial IoT gateway would provide interconnectivity, data acquisition, and pre-processing for underground mine devices, such commercial-grade devices are not designed to operate under challenging environments. Learn more about the differences.

A rugged industrial IoT gateway provides reliable communications despite being exposed to dust, rock debris, water, high/low temperatures, and even explosions. And second, the rugged industrial IIoT gateway provides adequate networking capabilities via wireless or PoE. Such features provide reliable communications to on-field mining devices and the remote control center.

The ISD-O370 solves the common underground mining monitoring challenges and provides the following benefits:

  • Improve operations and enhance production efficiency with edge intelligence. The ISD-O370 is a wireless edge appliance. It brings robust computational power to the underground mine. It allows data analytics such as insights-generation, predictive maintenance, and AI/ML and Machine Vision right at the mine.
  • Monitor the mine in real-time in order to improve the miner’s safety and production efficiency. The appliance’s edge capabilities help reduce network latency to forward surveillance data fast and easily. The IIoT device provides efficient and reliable data transmission for in-field data generation devices such as video cameras or sensors. With the help of additional software, the monitoring solution can provide equipment anomaly detection and alerting capabilities.
  • Protect the mine’s systems and data from devastating OT cyberattacks. The rugged industrial rugged IT gateway introduces ICS/OT security to protect the communications between IT and OT. Protect your connected IIoT-enabled network from cyberattacks, such as Ransomware or data theft.
  • Connect to telemetry systems on underground mining vehicles. The appliance can be used to gather mining vehicle data, pre-process it, and forward it. Vehicle surveillance and telematics can help prevent accidents, avoid expensive repairs, and improve overall productivity. Plus, the appliance can also help introduce intelligence applications like driver behavior monitoring.

Next Steps

For more information on other rugged industrial IoT gateways, or the underground mine monitoring solution please contact Lanner’s sales representative.

Vectors: Nature Vectors by Vecteezy

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