Design of surveillance and safety system for underground coal mines based on low power WSN

This paper presents a low power, cost-effective, and ZigBee protocol based wireless sensor network that provides an intelligent surveillance and safety system for underground coal mines. The system consists of wireless connection of several nodes. Sensor node mainly consists of ZigBee protocol based low power CC2530 transceiver integrated with a high performance, low power microcontroller on single chip. This integrated chip connected through RF connector on smartRF05 Battery Board. This small size, low power device is easily interfaced with desired miniature size sensors. Wireless sensor nodes join to other sensor node in specific multi-hop mesh network topology, that creates a ZigBee based wireless sensor network. This network can be easily placed in underground mines and it provides an effectively surveillance and safety system for underground coal miners. Especially, it provides the real-time data communication between miners and surface control room through highly secure, reliable wireless sensor nodes. The proposed system improves the existing miner's safety and early warning surveillance in underground coal mines.