Wireless mesh access point routing for efficient communication in underground mine

The reliability and survivability of conventional communications systems in harsh mining environments has always been a problem. The extreme conditions such as falling rock, collapsing tunnels, fires, explosions and flooding, during which communications are needed most, can also render them inoperable. An emergency underground communication system needs to be very robust with respect to these and other potential hazards. This paper deals with wireless backbone positioning for mesh wireless local area (WLAN) network. The routing problem is simulated to define the best position to place the wireless access point in mine galleries. The optimization strategy applied to the network design problem is the genetic algorithm. From various criteria such as the power profile through the mining gallery and the average SNIR level, the genetic algorithm treats all the possible positions and determines the optimal one for an effective communication. Optimization results considering density effect and other parameters such as the range, the hop number, the received power variation, the connection quality between access points are present