U.S. flag An official website of the United States government.
Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

i

Exploring the Performance and Reliability of Communication Links Subjected to Electromagnetic Interference in Radio Frequency-Controlled Heavy Equipment in an Underground Coal Mine

Public Domain


Details

  • Personal Author:
  • Description:
    Wireless technologies are increasingly being implemented in underground mines for various purposes such as communications, tracking, remote control, remote sensing, and environmental monitoring. However, the adoption comes with risks as common wireless systems, such as WiFi, Bluetooth, IWT (Innovative Wireless Technologies) wireless system, often operate in the unlicensed ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical) band. The shared nature of the ISM band can lead to interference among devices and consequently cause performance degradation and reliability issues. In this study, we developed two wireless communication evaluation boards as a tool to evaluate the performance and reliability of a wireless system with the presence of electromagnetic interferences (EMI) from other wireless systems in underground environments. We adjusted various parameters including signal power from adjacent frequency channels, noise power within the same channel, the movement of personnel, and communication packet size. Our findings indicate that, while the power of the EMI source plays a key role, the motion of personnel in the tunnel also has a strong impact on performance, and this impact increases as the power of EMI sources increases. In noisy environments, smaller packet sizes are preferable as they enhance the likelihood of successful transmission. High levels of interference or noise can lead to increased packet loss or error rates, potentially causing communication links to fail completely or become ineffective. The evaluation boards utilized in this study are based on a practical wireless transmission system deployed in a remote controller for a heavy mining machinery used in underground coal mines. The results and findings presented in this paper can aid in the design of wireless systems that are resilient to EMI in underground mining environments. [Description provided by NIOSH]
  • Subjects:
  • Keywords:
  • Series:
    Mining Publications
  • Publisher:
    Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME)
  • Document Type:
    Text
  • Genre:
    Proceedings
  • Place as Subject:
  • CIO:
    National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
  • Division:
    PMRD - Pittsburgh Mining Research Division
  • Topic:
    Workplace Safety & Health
  • Location:
    North America
  • Pages in Document:
    1-7
  • NIOSHTIC Number:
    nn:20070848
  • Citation:
    MineXchange: 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo, February 23-26, 2025, Denver, Coloardo, preprint 25-035. Englewood, CO: Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, 2025 Feb; :1-7
  • Federal Fiscal Year:
    2025
  • Peer Reviewed:
    False
  • Source Full Name:
    MineXchange: 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo, February 23-26, 2025, Denver, Coloardo, preprint 25-035
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha-512:ad18340d19748fdba76ccb8ef3a02ebf1f028438ee07507c033b8207a7cdc38cd960df430ec7247276b04a48754b7acfc839a64eca482e02dd67ab8e1839d0e4
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 455.26 KB ]
PREVIOUS
ON THIS PAGE
Details
CDC STACKS serves as an archival repository of CDC-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other public health information authored or co-authored by CDC or funded partners.

As a repository, CDC STACKS retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
BACK TO TOP