Electronic mine safety equipment company Booyco Electronics aims to drive an education and awareness campaign on the advantages and fit-for-purpose application of its International Standards Organisation- and legislation-compliant pedestrian detection system (PDS) technology this year.

This drive follows the publication of the Department of Mineral Resources’ draft review of Chapter 8 of the Mine Health and Safety (MHS) Act in February last year regarding the mandatory Code of Practice for Trackless Mobile Machinery (TMM), says Booyco Electronics MD Anton Lourens.

Amendments to Chapter 8 stipulate that all electrically or battery-powered TMM must be provided with the means to automatically detect the presence of any pedestrian and other vehicles within its vicinity.

They further state that, when the presence of a pedestrian is detected, the TMM operator and the pedestrian must be warned of each other’s presence through an effective warning; should no action be taken to prevent a potential collision, further means must be provided to retard the TMM to a safe speed, whereafter the brakes of the TMM are automatically applied without human intervention.

Lourens tells Mining Weekly that, as PDS equipment necessitates capital investment for fitment to all TMMs and staff, there is a key need for mining companies and stakeholders to understand this necessity and the compliance requirements.

Booyco Electronics, therefore, regards the Cape Town-based Investing in African Mining Indaba as a strategic event to progress awareness and showcase the company’s latest electronic safety technology offering.

Booyco Electronics’ flagship products include its very-low- frequency (VLF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) PDS technology, which comprises Collision Warning System (CWS) 1400, the company’s latest PDS model and the Asset Protection System (APS) 002 model.

CWS1400 has been developed over the past two years, with its development signed off at the end of September 2015, simultaneously signalling its market release.

The APS002 was developed at the same time and was signed off in December 2015.

The PDS equips miners with two-way RFID tags and vehicles or other static danger zones with VLF antennas, creating stable fields of a predetermined size and shape in front of and behind vehicles.

Upon entering this danger zone, which can be a static danger zone or an approaching vehicle, the pedestrian’s tag immediately activates its own warnings and triggers an audible and/or visual warning alarm to notify the equipment operator.

Production advantages stemming from the incorporation of the Booyco PDS technology can include increased uptime through the provision of holistic views of equipment availability and material volume performance.

Depending on the customer requirements identified by risk assessments, Booyco Electronics will adapt or integrate the CWS1400 and APS002 to provide a customised solution, Lourens notes.

The company will also exhibit its biometric control systems (BCSes), which have received increasing interest, at the Mining Indaba. The BCSs use fingerprints to authenticate licensed machine operators, and personalised smartcards that display an individual operator’s fingerprints along with other relevant data such as licensed capabilities and expiry dates.

To gain access to and operate a machine or equipment, operators validate themselves on the biometric scanning device attached to the machine. The system was developed locally over the past year.

In addition to believing that the VLF PDS is the best fit-for-purpose technology for pedestrian detection, owing to its reliability and stability, Lourens underscores the proven, reliable and effective detection capabilities of this technology in a multiple-operator, multiple- vehicle scenario.

PDS Demand
The success of the PDS is underpinned by several orders from the local platinum, chrome and diamond mining sectors for Booyco Electronics’ CWS 1400. Selected orders were completed in the last quarter of 2015, while several orders have started this month.

Lourens calculates that demand for Booyco Electronics’ PDS offering has increased by about 30% in the last six months, following the gazetting of Chapter 8 of the MHS Act last year.

To date, the company has installed about 3 500 vehicle PDSes and about 45 000 two-way RFID tags fitted to miners’ cap lamps in underground and surface mining applications in South Africa and the rest of Africa. Currently, all these installations employ only collision warning.

Although PDSes are deployed in gold, copper, coal, platinum and manganese mines in South Africa, the logistics, agriculture and forestry sectors have also expressed interest.

While some mining sites are testing and evaluating the implementation of intervention systems within the PDS realm for TMMs, Lourens reasons that further development in applying this technology would be determined by TMM original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

He, therefore, suggests collaboration between TMM OEMs and electronic safety equipment providers to progress the implementation of PDS intervention systems.

“As Booyco Electronics is regarded as one of the key PDS suppliers, the company remains committed to [introducing] continuous improvements through constantly driving research and development to ensure suitable detection, warning and, ultimately, intervention solutions,” Lourens adds.

owever, there is still much work to be done to provide custom solutions, increase the understanding of such systems and the implications thereof for mining production.

“With the current commodity slump placing significant pressure on mines to remain profitable, there lingers some challenges and scepticism in the industry to accept PDS as a necessary requirement.”

Nevertheless, the mining industry continues with its adoption philosophy of zero harm and the PDS supports this philosophy, Lourens states.