Underground Coal Mine Communications and Tracking Status SAGO Plus One Year

The coal mine explosion, at Sago mine on January 2, 2006, resulted in the deaths of twelve miners and has become the watershed event that reinvigorated interest in communicating with and tracking miners underground. This paper provides a review of the current state of efforts to provide quality underground communications and tracking and of the practical issues that are faced by designers of this new equipment. Many of the technologies are common above ground but have special issues and limitations underground. This paper will enumerate many of the technologies available and discuss the issues and limitations associated with the use of each of them underground. This paper includes the options available at press time that are approved by MSHA and speak to others that are possible in the near future.