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MacLean Engineering’s newly upgraded Ducky test mine in Sudbury, Canada, is growing in size and capabilities. Donna Schmidt finds out more about the facility.

Check out the Full article on Mining Magazine's website: Almost-reality training for mine workers - Mining Magazine.

In September 2020, MacLean Engineering announced its collaboration with Maestro Digital Mine for the placement of a connectivity network at the Ducky lab in the form of Maestro’s Plexus PowerNet gigabit network for data and power. The coaxial cable-based system is a high speed, low-latency digital communication network offering PoE+ power to access points (APs), cameras and other internet protocol (IP)-based devices.
 
Plexus PowerNet can be installed and maintained internally, the company said at the time of the announcement, and utilised with or without a fiber optic network. “It supports existing underground mine infrastructure and provides network connectivity to new IIoT [Industrial Internet of Things] devices and automation technologies for digital mines, such as the MacLean R&D facility,” the companies said.
 
The Ducky lab now has just one cable for its network connectivity, and the system’s EZ Advance nodes help to terminate, troubleshoot and deploy connected devices via an embedded network switch. “Collaboration up and down the supply chain is critical to making innovation happen in the under ground mining sector at home and around the globe,” marketing and communications VP Stuart Lister points out. “It will be backbone of our automation product development [at the facility].”

International Mining Magazine – February 2021 Issue

Check out the full Mining Software Feature Article here.
For more information on IMM, visit im-mining.com.

No modern mine is short of data, but what these operations continually lack is an ability to fully leverage this data across processes.Dan Gleeson speaks to those in the mining software space to find out how far off the industry is from ‘connecting the dots’

With its IIoT devices and solutions – such as the Vigilante AQS™ and Zephyr AQS™ air quality stations to measure environmental conditions in real time – now installed in 34 different countries and over 145 underground mines in less than 10 years, Maestro Digital Mine’s success is known the world over.

All of Maestro’s products, including its last mile network Plexus Powernet™, are fully digital and ‘connected’ to determine the health of the sensors and the complete system.

To leverage this information, the company has developed MaestroLink™ Server to monitor the equipment and allow easy and quick decisions from a centralised location. The software goes as far as indicating what the action response must be.

As Maestro Director of Marketing and Communications, Shannon Katary, says, “data is only useful if it helps determine a decision or action”. Maestro has the capability to provide instruction items around its device maintenance, she added. “MaestroLink fits perfectly into our core purpose of enhancing lives by the pursuit of productivity and safety excellence,” she added.

All of Maestro’s industrial IoT devices use embedded web servers along with digital technology right to each individual sensor, enabling remote diagnostics for solving maintenance problems as well as assuring sensor calibration compliance.

MaestroLink Server is a network-based software platform that features a multi-instance web-based interface to monitor and record the health of Vigilante AQS and Zephyr AQS stations along with the Plexus PowerNet underground communication networks.

Maestro’s research, industry client engagement and experience discovered that once new digital hardware is installed underground, it often does not deliver on its full promise of consistent and accurate data to ultimately drive better business decisions. Part of the long-standing problem is assuring the original data is valid, which, in turn, drives end user confidence.

“The requirement to properly diagnose the equipment in real time becomes essential to keep up with operational production demands,” the company says.

“With the addition of new digital solutions, the automation and electrical maintenance department is tasked with solving ever more complex problems with resources that have not increased in proportion to the number of sensors and systems that they are expected to support,” Katary said.

MaestroLink Server was developed to fill the gap between the requirement of maximising reliable and accurate operational data while reducing the impact and workload of the maintenance and support team, according to Katary.

Once installed, MaestroLink Server reaches out on the network to find and self populate the IIoT devices and network nodes, and begins to monitor both the data and advanced diagnostics of the devices.

The benefits have been seen at a Nevada-based gold mine, which was experiencing ventilation constraints. The mine’s ventilation teams meet weekly to analyse MaestroLink Server data and diagnostics. By looking at the data and diagnostics, they can action the maintenance team. They can also determine which ventilation doors have been left open and send a technician to rectify the issue in real time to increase the overall ventilation supply to the working areas.

Such a process effectively makes MaestroLink Server an in-house, factory-trained Maestro technologist and engineer for the mine, working 24-7 and assuring maximum uptime of each digital device, Katary said.

She concluded: “MaestroLink Server saves time and cost by giving miners the ability to poll the diagnostics, and then turn the data into tangible actions from surface before having to go underground. The support team will go underground the first time with the proper tools, spare parts and equipment to do the maintenance once instead of multiple trips.”

Shannon Katary, Maestro Digital Mine, considers the best methods of air ventilation in underground mines

The air quality stations need to be cost effective and used with the existing mine infrastructure. As a result, Maestro developed the Vigilante AQSTM air quality station to measure environmental conditions in real-time for worker health and safety and to reduce the total installed infrastructure costs.

The station is a multi-variable air quality station designed to monitor and control air quality in underground mines that accurately measures airflow rate, direction, wet and dry bulb temperature, gas concentration and dust particulates, enabling miners to return to the face sooner and safer. This Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) device connects directly to any network without the requirement of adding an expensive and complex programmable logic controller (PLC). This solution is compact, easy to install and train people to use. Best of all, the system is 50 – 70% less expensive than conventional options.

To ensure worker safety, fixed environmental sensors transmit real-time data from the underground workings to the surface command centre. The real-time data from the sensors allows miners to return safely to their working areas more quickly, allowing significant productivity increases along with monitoring critical areas for potential fires. All critical sensors require frequent maintenance and calibration to maintain accurate and reliable measurements. The previously used technology required underground calibrations at each individual location using test gases and calibration equipment. However, several physical and environmental challenges prevented accurate and repeatable calibrations. Calibrating gas sensors underground is very difficult, time consuming and fraught with calibration errors thereby limiting the confidence of the legacy monitors.

Working in partnership with the mines to meet their requirements, the company aids in installing the Vigilante AQS Air Quality Stations that feature digital gas sensors that can be calibrated on surface in a stable controlled environment. The digital sensors then can be ‘hot swapped’ by a ventilation technician without the requirement of any sort of underground calibration. Built upon the IIoT, the digital sensors compensate for barometric pressure and temperature and have a complete suite of real-time diagnostics to help determine the health of the complete system and provide maximum system uptime.

Check out the full Feature Article here (PDF). 

For more information on the Global Mining Review, visit globalminingreview.com.

Maestro’s vision is to change the way that underground mines communicate and to strip out complexity in the automation sector by utilizing Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices and solutions.

We are recreating the methodology of underground asset automation by greatly reducing expensive and complex hardware, software, and engineered services, using simple, mine-hardened IIoT devices. The “plug and play” IIoT solutions drive out automation CAPEX and reduce integration times by a factor of 40-70% while providing additional real-time diagnostics that assure maximum uptimes and minimal OPEX.

Anything IIoT that is used in a mine and is considered a fixed asset is on our radar. We have decided not to enter the mobile IIoT market. Pumps, ore passes, crushers, fans, doors, regulators, paste fill, hydraulic oil, fuel, compressed air, potable water systems - all need automation. All require expensive and complex PLC or DCS systems to integrate and control. Maestro will continue to combine embedded firmware/hardware IIoT edge-based devices that strip out this complex and expensive equipment.

Check out the full interview here.

The Complete Publication of Mining in Ontario and Toronto's Global Reach 2021 is Now Online for Viewing.

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