Huawei deploys Smart Mining Solution for potash mine in Laos

Posted by Paul Moore on nineteenth December 2022

On December 15, 2022, a miner at a potash mine in Laos made a video name on a wi-fi community from 300 m underground utilizing his smartphone. The milestone, a primary for southeast Asia, occurred on the Asia-Potash Worldwide Funding mine in Khammouane province, 350 km from Laos’ capital Vientiane. In the course of the name, the employee was in a position to chat with colleagues positioned 3,500 km away in Beijing.

Asia-Potash Worldwide Funding is among the largest potassium fertiliser producers in Asia, with 1 Mt of output anticipated in 2022. Implementing Huawei’s Sensible Mining Answer, it’s Asia-Potash’s first good mine in southeast Asia. Manufacturing capability has tremendously elevated on the website in recent times, with headcount rising from a whole lot to over 3,000 employees. To raised handle the elevated scope of operations, the corporate plans to introduce a number of technical upgrades that may enhance productiveness in addition to website security. Quick communications are the muse for enabling these upgrades.

In future, operators will comfortably sit in workplaces above floor, remote-controlling mining automobiles which might be working a whole lot of metres under in warmth, mud, and humidity. Huawei acknowledged: “QC might be carried out utilizing automated strategies largely primarily based on machine imaginative and prescient AI. And the scheduling of potash transportation automobiles is consistently being optimised primarily based on demand. These applied sciences will all require excessive bandwidth, low latency communications techniques to supply full protection all through the location.”

It took solely two months to deploy Huawei’s Sensible Mining Answer on the website, consisting of each wired and wi-fi (4G) networks. “Wi-fi networks can present protection in components of the mine the place it’s too tough to deploy fibre. This may allow the deployment of capabilities like automated QC or speedy response to incidents wherever within the mine. As for the fibre community, it’s comprehensively deployed above floor and partially in underground operations. Fiber offers big quantities of bandwidth and low latency, important for fixed monitoring or distant operation of main gear. As soon as in place, good mine applied sciences will maximise employees security above and under floor.”

In response to Li Shaokui, Deputy Supervisor of the Mining Division of Asia-Potash Worldwide Funding, options of good mining like distant management and autonomous driving rely on applied sciences like cloud-edge collaboration and ultra-large bandwidth. Sensible mining additionally requires full community protection with both fibre or 5G. The corporate plans to implement to totally deploy good mining on the website sooner or later, making a strong basis for people-centric good mines.

Previously, communications with staff underground required using telephones related to fastened traces, recollects Zheng Longjie, a Huawei venture supply proprietor. Huawei states: “It’s now potential to make use of a smartphone wherever on the mine. It’s potential to know always the place all staff are positioned and what they’re doing. The community was deployed in full consideration of the mine’s evolving wants. Networks can present a number of providers, help a number of provisioning, and might be flexibly upgraded to 5G in future.”