The mining industry has been embracing innovative technologies as they strive to increase both production base and efficiency in tough economic markets. Many are turning to automation and remote operation technologies throughout their businesses such as, driverless trains and haul trucks, remotely operated plant, train loading and mine control. Others are turning to asset health technologies and condition monitoring over regular preventative maintenance to reduce costs.
As these technologies are rolled out, the last mile wireless network that supports them has become a critical component of mine infrastructure. LTE offers a technology solution that is licensed, reliable, scalable and that can handle not only these automation and asset health applications, but also most of the existing legacy applications on a mining site such as push to talk voice, industrial control and telemetry.
When properly designed and maintained, an LTE Network offers better coverage, capacity and capability than its previous industrial wireless network counterparts.
This White Paper gives an overview of current LTE technology advancements and investigates what challenges are presented to the deployment of LTE in a mining setting.
This white paper was originally released in September 2013 and has been updated to reflect current insights.