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Underground Mines Environmental Monitoring Using Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs):A Case Of Zambian Mines

Posted on:2012-02-25Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:M W ( N c h i m u n y a C h Full Text:PDF
GTID:1118330335455045Subject:Communication and Information System
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Zambian underground mines are becoming more mechanized and extensive with the coming in of foreign investors, this has in turn resulted in the deterioration of the working environment for the miners. In order to improve the underground mine working environment, more stringent monitoring and assessment standards need to be designed, formulated and applied to the mining industry. The main goal of some professionals in academic circles, the government and the private sector has been to bring improvement in the underground mine environment and mitigate its hazards. As a result of their efforts, there has been tremendous professional progress and improvement in the area of mine ventilation and safety. It is however unfortunate that mine disasters have continued to occur throughout the world and Zambia in particular. It is for this reason that, a need has been felt for further advances in plans and designs for monitoring underground mine environments.In this thesis we explore the potential of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in the context of underground mine environmental monitoring. Our goal is to confront an emerging technology with a concrete problem of world-wide dimensions, the safety of miners working in hostile underground environments. The work presented in this thesis has investigated the feasibility, characteristics and potential applications of low power wireless networking technology, particularly aimed at improving underground mine safety. Following an initial review, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) were identified as having many desirable attributes as a modern underground environmental monitoring tool. WSNs are mobile, flexible, and easily scalable, installation time is reduced and there is scope for rapid deployment in case of an emergence such as a mine explosion or roof rock fall. The self-healing, self-organizing, multiple pathway redundancy, and highly scalable nature of WSNs are particularly advantageous for underground, or confined space, high-integrity safety and emergency applications. The study and potential use of WSNs in an underground mine is a novel aspect of this thesis.In the first part of the thesis we present and discuss the results of a field survey we carried out, whose aim was to assess the current underground mine environmental monitoring methods in Zambia. The research covered 6 mining companies on the Copperbelt province of Zambia. Our study revealed that the mines in Zambia, uses manual monitoring methods or wired sensors to monitor environmental conditions underground. The study also revealed that the current methods are not very effective and a number of accidents that could have been avoided were recorded in the past five years. The safety departments and the environmental departments which were our targeted respondents in all the 4 out of the 6 mines that participated unanimously welcomed the idea of introducing WSNs as monitoring tools for environmental conditions in underground mines. We then presented a WSN for underground mine environmental monitoring framework and discussed the challenges of implementing such a framework.The second part of the thesis is devoted to wave propagation modeling in underground environments. The nature of the underground environment makes it difficult for the Wireless underground Sensor networks applications to be fully implemented and appreciated. We investigated wireless propagation characteristics in underground environments and this involved examining existing propagation models and identifying their limitations. We then designed two models, the first one concerns sensors that are buried underground. Our proposed model takes into account most of the soil or rock properties that affects wave propagation. The second model concerns sensors that are underground but in open spaces such as mine tunnels. Our proposed model revealed that wave diffraction due to the obstacles such as shuttle cars in underground mines have an effect on the propagated wave.
Keywords/Search Tags:Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Wireless underground sensor networks (WUSNs), Environmental monitoring, underground mine, wave propagation modeling
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