RadCAT

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The radio communications and tracking system (RadCAT) is a two-way radio system for use in both emergency and operational situations in underground coal mines.  A complete RadCAT system will provide two-way voice and text messaging communications among roving miners, mine rescue team members, and between a surface monitoring center and all underground personnel.  It also provides tracking capability for roving, trapped, and barricaded miners.

The RadCAT system consists of the following components:

• Tracking beacon for roving miners that can be carried on a belt or stored with emergency supplies
• Multimode cap lamp transceiver for voice and text messaging between roving miners and mine rescue teams
• Delta Tracker for locating trapped miners from the surface
• Directional fox hunter antenna for use by mine rescue teams for locating trapped miners within a mining complex
• F1/F1 repeater network
• Surface network computer and graphical display
• Personal data assistant.

The RadCAT system is modular and can be installed in a number of configurations, the simplest consisting of through-the-earth portable tracking beacons integrated into the cap lamp battery of a roving miner and surface-deployed Delta Tracker capable of detecting the signal from the tracking beacons to determine the location of a trapped miner.  This version of the RadCAT system can be upgraded easily to include two-way text messaging by replacing the tracking beacon with transceiver mounted on the cap lamp battery.

Important performance features of the RadCAT system include

• Extremely reliable, robust, and redundant transmission network
• Intrinsically safe and/or flameproof design that remains operational when ventilation is disrupted
• Emergency and operational radio communications and tracking integrated into a single network, which ensures real-time maintenance of the system
• Surface computer graphical display of a mine map with real-time location of roving miners
• Automatically expanding transmission network within a mining complex, which is self-organizing and self-healing if the integrity of part of the network is damaged
• Bluetooth protocol for transmission of of trapped miners’ vital signs and personal data assistant information
• Continuous operation for 48 hours in the event of mine-wide electrical power failure.

Much of the RadCAT system hardware is already designed and has been approved for underground use in coal mines.  The surface-deployed Delta Tracker is available at the present time. The principal electronic components of the RadCAT system have been designed, built, and evaluated.  MSHA has approved the F1/F1 repeater as explosion proof and for installation in 2-inch roof-rock boreholes.  The battery current trip circuit used in the tracking beacon and the cap lamp transceiver has received MSHA intrinsically safe (IS) approval.  The RadCAT cap lamp transceiver text messaging electronics have been submitted to MSHA for IS certification.