Electronic safety equipment provider Booyco Electronics’ biometric control system (BCS) has attracted widespread interest from the local mining industry after being introduced to market last year.

“To date [Booyco Electronics] has had enquiries from more than ten different mines and mining groups across all commodity sectors in the underground and surface environment,” says Booyco MD Anton Lourens.

He notes that, while there has not been any international interest in the BCS, he believes that local mining operators will most likely want to employ the same equipment they use locally on their international sites.

The system, which uses fingerprints to authenticate licensed machine operators, was developed locally over about six months, after which further improvements were added, based on field trials and customer feedback.

The BCS uses personalised smart cards, which display an individual operator’s fingerprints along with other relevant data such as their licensed capabilities.

Operators gain access to and can operate a given machine or piece of equipment by validating their fingerprints on the biometric scanning device, attached to the machine.

This system can also be applied underground and in other control environments, such as explosives magazines, and facilitate access control to underground substations.

Lourens notes that the BCS “provides the ideal solution, allowing controlled access to moveable items, such as earthmoving and mining equipment, blasting boxes and carts, as well as conveyor starter panels”.

Communication to and from the device takes places through an approved control module, and the system provides for an intrinsically safe (IS) unit, powered by an IS power supply housed in a flameproof enclosure to allow for use in coal mines and other environments where explosives are used.

Lourens says that, if a person loses his or her card, he or she cannot start any machine. “This is the major key operational component of the system and ensures that there is no unlawful operation of equipment . . . it is a fail-safe system, which achieves the desired outcome of preventing a person from unlawfully operating equipment.”

He concludes that the BCS has a self-contained unit for fitment to vehicles, machinery or substations, but that it does require authorisation software, which is provided at the training centre, where a competent operator is provided with the valid licence for operating a specific vehicle type.