Coal Mine Safety Monitoring and Alerting System
Abstract
Coal is the biggest contributor in generation of electricity for the world. Coal-fired plants produce 72% of India’s electricity. Apart from usage in thermal power plants, coal has great demand in other industrial sectors like Cement, Steel etc., It provides a very cheap alternative for steam generation. Therefore this fuel will continue to play a major role in Indian economy in its foreseeable future, regardless of the government’s ambitious plans to produce electricity through renewable resources. Fire, flood, mine collapse, mine explosion, hazardous atmosphere and particulate matter are some of the dangers associated with underground mining. Their consequences are further exacerbated by the cramped workplace atmosphere. The mine environment present underground is hazardous due to the emissions methane, nitrous oxide carbon monoxide etc which naturally occur in the rock strata. The high concentrations pose a risk to the miner’s health and life. Thus an alerting system is the need of the hour. This paper proposes a system to monitor the safety of the miner, alert them, based on Arduino and ZigBee technology and to collect CO, humidity and N2O concentration using sensor nodes.