Towards Greener & Safer Mines with Wireless Sensor Networks

Miniaturized sensors and networking are technical proven concepts. Both the technologies are proven and various components e.g., sensors, controls, etc. are commercially available. Technology scene in above areas presents enormous possibilities for developing innovative applications for real life situations. Mining operations in many countries have lot of scope for improving environmental and safety measures. Efforts have been made to develop a system to efficiently monitor a particular environment by deploying a wireless sensor network using commercially available components. Wireless Sensor Network has been integrated with telecom network through a gateway using a suitable topology which can be selected at the application layer. The developed system demonstrates a way to connect wireless sensor network to external network which enables the distant administrator to access real time data and act expediently from long-distance to improve the environmental situation or prevent a disaster. Potentially, it can be used to avoid the awful situations leading to terrible environment in underground mines.