Rajant wireless to connect above and below

Provider of Kinetic Mesh wireless networks, Rajant Corp., recently announced its participation at MINExpo to showcase its collaborative solutions for fully mobile, underground and open-pit connectivity that could redefine the digital revolution.

"With the mining industry deploying more autonomous and semi-autonomous equipment and applications every day, they require mission-critical, high bandwidth, secure, machine-to-machine communications systems," said Rajant EVP of Sales and Marketing Geoff Smith. "Rajant Kinetic Mesh maintains uninterrupted high throughput and low latency to overcome any interference, above or underground, enabling all autonomous applications as well as trackable systems to support worker safety."

Deployed in more than 230 of the largest open-pit and underground mines globally, Rajant pioneered the fully mobile V2X/M2M and has a heritage of maintaining interoperability with its existing BreadCrumb wireless nodes with new product releases.

For instance, this year Rajant introduced its fourth generation BreadCrumbs, known as Peregrine and Hawk, which have had the fastest transition to new sales in its history, a testament to the firmware quality and interoperability the company has been delivering.

"We recently deployed the new Peregrine radios in a remote-control application with the need for high-definition camera systems," said Intermountain Mining Technology General Manager Michael Gray. "While exceeding the customer's expectations of speed and clarity of the solution, we as a support organization appreciate the ease of configuration and backward compatibility that allows us to quickly and seamlessly integrate the new BreadCrumb into an existing Rajant environment."

You can read more about Rajant and its BreadCrumb wireless network nodes at IMS a complete mining network platform in the June 9, 2021 edition of Metal Tech News.

Demonstrations and testimonials from partners featured at MINExpo included:

• Boston Dynamics – Spot robot for underground inspection

• NEVIL – Teleoperation for dozing and heavy equipment

• Overwatch Aero – Open-pit drone inspection

• Vorbeck – Wearable video/VoIP (voice over internet protocol) communication system

• xCraft – Underground and open-pit drone inspection

Furthermore, Rajant also announced just before the exhibition a strategic partnership with ESG Solutions to carry microseismic data to the surface from underground mining.

According to ESG's Technical Sales Advisor Tony Butler, the primary challenge with accurate data from underground readings comes from system timing synchronization with its Paladin units.

Rajant's Kinetic Mesh, however, has managed to provide a stable and wireless solution for the microseconds of time needed to acquire accurate seismic data.

"With Rajant Kinetic Mesh, we are overcoming the time synchronization issue with PTP (precision timing protocol) system timing of 30 microseconds (plus/minus 10 microseconds) being achieved for networked Paladins," added Butler. "The system accuracy is more than sufficient for the vast majority of microseismic systems installed that use geophones or accelerometers."

Although the advent of 5G has given a glimpse of the capabilities of powerful wireless networks in future smart mines, innovations like Rajant's Kinetic Mesh provide market diversity and avenues of further growth through competition, granting the largest benefit overall.