IoT in mining for sensing, monitoring and prediction of underground mines roof support

Digital transformation is emerging as a driving force to revolutionize the world around us. Digitalization will play defining role in the mining industry too where connectivity plays a gigantic role. The idea is to embed more and more things with electronics, sensors, and software to allow things to communicate and exchange data with each other possibly but not necessarily via the Internet. This type of setting is inevitably known as the Internet of Things (IoT). ‘Self-Advancing Goaf Edge Support Systems (SAGES)’ have been developed for de-pillaring operations in Indian Underground Coalmines as mobile roof support systems. This paper explores and proposes the development of Smart SAGES by harnessing the power of IoT technologies. Though IoT brings lots of benefits but it comes with its own challenges. Like mining industry is increasingly prone to cyberattacks due to enormous economical factor attached to it. It is concluded that a robust communication channel using data-logger should be established for SAGES so that the safety, and reliability of the SAGES data sent to the clouds are ensured and the information are accessed reliably via a smart-phone application.