• The system will allow sending text, audio and video messages over long distances and at high speeds in underground mining operations. The project is led by Dr Ismael Soto, director of the Getic Laboratory of the Department of Electrical Engineering, and Dr Carolina Lagos Aguirre, alternate director of the project.

The system consists of a new device about the size of a cell phone that will enable good communications in underground mining operations by sending text, audio and video messages over long distances and at high speeds. 

Tech-Lifim (communication technology through visible light in mining operations) is a LED light-based device that transmits and decodes data through light pulses. The project is one of the research works conducted by the Department of Electrical Engineering of Universidad de Santiago de Chile.

The study is being developed by the Getic Laboratory of Universidad de Santiago (which is focused on digital signal processing for wireless communications), led by Dr Ismael Soto and Dr Carolina Lagos Aguirre, with the participation of graduate and undergraduate students at the university.

Exploring new needs

The project was started in 2010, when links were established with the Chuquicamata Division (the largest open pit copper producer in the world) of de Chilean’s National Corporation of Copper (Codelco, in Spanish), with the purpose of conducting studies on copper mining. “We gathered information about their needs and one of the issues they mentioned was the lack of communication devices, particularly for underground mining operations,” Dr Lagos says. “They asked us to develop a device able to transmit data at high speed and under adverse conditions, like high temperature, high humidity, dust and smoke.”

The research team established a strategic partnership with the company Control & Logic and started to work on the device. For a year and a half, they have continued with the research work, performed some tests and given presentations in Chuquicamata. “The device can be placed on the workers’ helmets, on underground tunnels’ walls and on trucks, to guarantee a simultaneous communication,” she says.

Global impact

According to the researchers, the system, which is currently at the production stage, is very efficient and meets the workers’ safety requirements.

Universidad de Santiago de Chile has already filed a patent request in Chile for this product. The next step will be filing a request abroad, because of a global underground mining project led by Codelco that will be started in 2019, based on the systems being implemented in Chuquicamata now,” Dr Soto explains.

In this context, they have created a company supported by the Innovo Usach business incubator. “We have the goal of placing the product in the market and start its commercialization in January 2017. Although we have worked with Chuquicamata for now, the device will be available for everyone who needs it,” the researcher says.

Other studies

This communication device is an example of the many studies that this research team intends to conduct. “We are also developing a lighting system for underground mining operations that will be available in the years to come,” Dr Soto says.

Besides, the research team is working on other projects in collaboration with foreign institutions like Northumbria University (England), the Oil and Gas University of Ploiesti (Romania) and the University of Lorraine (France).

Translated by Marcela Contreras