A feasibility study of SOA-enabled networked rock bolts

The use of rock bolts in the mining industry is a widely used approach for increasing mine stability. However, when compared to the automation industry, where the use of sensors and real-time monitoring of processes have evolved rapidly, the use rock bolts have not changed a lot during the last 100 years. What is missing are technologies for keeping installed rock bolts under real-time and online monitoring. One problem is that rock bolts can become damaged by seismic activities or movements within the rock, and thus lose their load bearing capacity. If that happens, the outer shell of a tunnel's walls or ceiling can collapse, with disaster as a result. Therefore, there is a clear need for online and real-time monitoring solutions for strain and thereby stress, as well as seismic activity. In this paper, the current state of art in research around intelligent rock bolts is presented. An intelligent rock bolt is the combination of a traditional rock bolt with an Internet of Things device, i.e. a rock bolt with embedded sensors, actuators, processing capabilities and wireless communication. In the proposed architecture, every rock bolt has its own IPv6 address and can establish a wireless mesh network in an ad-hoc manner. By measuring strain and seismic activity and exposing the sensors in the form of services, large gains in terms of safety and efficiently can be achieved. A number of mining related activities such as stress on the rock bolt can be detected, falling rocks and the presence of mobile machinery can be observed. Since the network is based on standard communication protocols such as IPv6, it is vital to add security mechanisms to prevent eavesdropping and tampering of data traffic. By utilizing the real-time monitoring capabilities of a network of Internet-connected intelligent rock bolt, it is possible to drastically improve monitoring of mining activities and thereby providing workers with a safer working environment.