MineLoc — Personnel Tracking System for Longwall Coal Mining Sites

The localization of people and objects in indoor environments is an ongoing research challenge with a diverse set of possible positioning sensors. For the harsh environment of an underground coal mine, a system relying on received signal strength (RSS) measurements of common radio modules has been proven to deliver accurate and reliable positioning results. However, in tunnel environments of a longwall mining facility, conventional indoor radio propagation models are not valid due to waveguide effects. Additional investigations regarding the RSS-based ranging and the localization algorithm will be proposed. Ray tracing is used to find an appropriate propagation model and to define suitable range sections for different radio frequency bands. Simulation and experiment ranging results are compared for 2.4 GHz and sub- GHz radios. An enhanced weighted centroid localization (WCL) approach is essential, taking into account the peculiarities of the longwall mining environment.