Why underground CAS hasn’t worked

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For an industry as technologically progressive as mining, there is a glaring absence of an effective underground collision avoidance system (CAS). Wabtec has developed and deployed a leading surface CAS widely adopted by the mining industry. After hearing the frustrated and disappointed voices of many industry participants – they began developing what they believe will be the first effective underground CAS, due for release later this year.

Mine Australia spoke to Mitch Tanzer, Global Commercial Director, to find out more about this promising system.

We’ve been in mining technology for over 20 years, and safety has always been at the heart of what we do. During this time, we've seen significant advancements in surface mining safety and our Gen 3 CAS solution has taken this to a new level. Underground operations present a completely different set of challenges. It’s a more confined environment, with limited visibility, unpredictable interactions between equipment and personnel, and unique operational complexities.

We built and deployed our surface CAS very much in consultation with a key customer, Glencore Coal. So, we were regularly engaged at this industry level and that means we’ve been fortunate to have a seat at the table with not just customers, but with industry participants, regulators, other OEMs; and consistently, what we were hearing is a frustration and disappointment with the underground solutions currently available in the market.

The statistics are clear — 30 to 40% of industry fatalities each year are linked to vehicle interaction failures. That’s a sobering reality. So, we saw an opportunity to address these challenges by evolving our proven collision avoidance technologies specifically for underground use. Our aim is simple: Wabtec wants to enable the mining industry to achieve zero harm by providing a solution that offers the superior functional and technical performance that our customers expect, in even the most challenging environments.

Many systems currently in use are either too sensitive or not intelligent enough to differentiate between safe and unsafe interactions, which leads to alarm fatigue. Over time, operators will start tuning out those alarms, which defeats the entire purpose of the system. Too many beeps, buzzers, and distractions can make an already difficult job even more challenging, so the feedback is clear: systems need to be smarter, simpler, and more intuitive.

Another concern is that solutions designed for surface operations don’t translate well to the underground environment. First, there’s no GPS signal, so you're in an environment where it's very difficult to rely on positional sensing. Second, in open cut you’ve got laneways, whereas underground is confined and there’s a lot more personnel interacting with machines.

And then there’s the issue of interoperability— many mining operations need continuity of their safety solution; one that works both above ground and underground, but no system yet is capable of delivering both.

We’re really excited about where we’re heading with this. Our underground CAS solution is being developed as we speak, and we’ve taken everything we’ve learned from the development of our surface solutions to create something that is purpose-built for underground.

We completed site based ranging tests in an underground mine late last year with one of our valued customers. The testing validated the performance of the proposed sensing technology in terms of detection range and performance on both machinery and people in some specific scenarios such as head on, around corners etc. Overall, the testing was successful with detection across the scenarios.

The methodology we established for surface CAS is something that we can replicate underground. The way we start the design process is we understand the critical risks we need to solve for, then engage with the operators and ask about the normal operating behaviour in a given scenario. Then we know what parameters we need to understand, like speed, position, turning angle, whether a machine is in reverse, park or propel. From there, if you've got sensing capability that's able to pick up those parameters, you can design your rules and intelligence engine. You roll that out, test it, break it, update it, get the green tick, then move onto the next scenario. It’s a layered cake approach.

I think what sets us apart is that, just like our surface solution, our underground CAS solution will be designed with the operator experience front and centre. So that means the system is not only intuitive but also reduces cognitive load.

Our advanced rules and intelligence, the heartbeat of our Gen 3 CAS solution, means that alarms only trigger in critical situations, which minimizes false alarms and builds trust with operators. And we’ve made sure that our solution doesn’t disrupt production, even when operating at Level 8 or Level 9.

Finally, interoperability is a big focus for us. We want to ensure that our surface and underground solutions have a level of interoperability with each other, leveraging similar hardware architecture. This continuity makes it easier for mining companies to implement and scale their safety initiatives.

Ultimately, we’re not here to simply provide another product to the market; we’re fully invested in the industries goal of zero harm.

We have a vision; to be the leading OEM agnostic technology provider of safety, productivity and sustainability solutions for mission critical mobile equipment.

We’re continuing to expand our footprint into new regions where the demand for our solutions is strong. In some mining jurisdictions, new partnerships will support our growth.

We’re also looking at some exciting partnerships that enable us to solve for some unique productivity and sustainability use cases, this will extend our technology leadership in safety.

On that note we’ve expanded our solution portfolio with an exciting partnership with DotNetix; they are a company leading the way in AI smart camera technology. This partnership allows us to expand our capabilities and enables us to solve more problems for our customers such as edge & void detection, fatigue monitoring, enhanced hazard & machine detection plus tag-less personnel detection. We are hosting a webinar with the DotNetix CEO, Wietz Joubert in March, so please feel free to join the discussion.