Embedded System for Mine Process Monitoring in a Network Constrained Environment Using Wireless Communication Bridge

Abstract

An efficient and robust implementation of a vehicle monitoring system in places where a Global Navigation Satellite System or GNSS (e.g. GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO) signal is available but Cellular Network Signal is unavailable/unreliable for making a GPRS connection like in an open cast mine is presented. A ZigBee Wireless Network is deployed at the location of interest, i.e. the open cast mine, with the ZigBee Network Coordinator attached to a Single Board Computer(SBC) which is placed at a remote place where it has uninterrupted Internet access either via LAN, Wi-Fi or Cellular Network (GPRS). The location of SBC is chosen such that the region devoid of cellular network falls within the ZigBee Coordinator’s range. Other ZigBee nodes are attached to the vehicle’s Tracking Equipment as ZigBee Routers. Whenever a vehicle’s tracking equipment fails to make a GPRS connection, it sends its location via the ZigBee network to the coordinator which acts as a gateway and uploads the received location data to the tracking server. ZigBee Network Watchdog Timer are configured such as to allow automatic rejoining of ZigBee nodes when vehicles leave and enter the ZigBee Network Range. Vehicle tracking equipment and the Gateway Coordinating Equipment are implemented using hardware and open source software platforms and libraries such as Arduino, Raspberry-Pi and Linux.