The largest coal operation in Russia, the OAO Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK) ranks among the world's top 10 coal producing organizations. With several branches and subsidiaries scattered across this vast country, neighboring republics and territories, SUEK had a requirement for a wireless network solution that would have the capacity to deliver critical operational information from specially equipped mining utility vehicles at numerous sites. The company chose Motorola's Mesh technology and the network was supplied by Motorola authorized distributor in Russia, Saga Inc. and implemented by systems integrator and Saga partner, the VIST Group.
SUEK looked to implement multi-site, high-speed wireless networks for the rapid delivery of telemetry information such as location coordinates, traffic speed, operating parameters and various events from mobile mine vehicles including dump trucks, excavators, bulldozers, fuel tankers and other machinery. This information would be used to create an automated traffic dispatch and control system to provide remote monitoring from the company's regional offices.
In these RF challenging environments, secure mobile communications are critical, so the self-forming, self-healing and self-balancing nature of the Mesh network has been designed to provide reliable broadband connectivity with fast communication handoffs to support routing changes between vehicles.
As a result of the constant changes to the mining environments, the option of deploying cable was not just impractical, but also expensive. The Motorola solution was to provide additional connectivity through its fixed wireless broadband (Ethernet bridge) system which is delivering aggregate data rates of 10 to 12 Mbps over a distance of 10 kilometers. This system is also used to link regional site offices to the mines.
With the networks providing communication coverage, dispatch center personnel now have access to data from across entire mining operations. The use of satellite positioning technology has also made it possible to track movements of mobile equipment inside the mines in real-time while in-vehicle equipment monitors everything from fuel use to road surface conditions. This has subsequently led to an improvement in production scheduling and a significant reduction in resource overheads, such as fuel use.
The ability to calculate the economic effect of implementation makes it possible to shift the emphasis from the cost of the equipment to calculating the payback period of the solution.