Smart Helmets for Safety in Mining Industry

The mining industry is pivotal to the world's economy. However, it is not one of the safest industries to work in. The life of miners is always at stake. This project attempts to help the miners in distress so that they receive immediate help. The helmet used by the miner can be improved by adding a wireless sensor mote and necessary sensors, which will help in monitoring the health condition of the miner. In doing so, a network of wireless sensors can be formed. This wireless sensor network (WSN) can be used to monitor the well-being of all the miners who are at work. The routing protocol developed for this project is based on Distance vector routing (DVR) and finds the best path based on shortest hop. The protocol is also robust to deal with failures. It does not require synchronization of the nodes. The protocol is pro-active to minimize delays. Whenever the load felt on the force sensor on the helmet is more than a threshold value, the mote in the helmet attempts to send a distress message to its Room Manager through the saved route. When a miner sends a distress message via its Room Manager, officials from Center can send in a medical team. The miners in the neighboring rooms are also informed so that they can help voluntarily. At times, the mote may not have a route to its Room Manager. In such cases a failure recovery procedure is carried out. The functioning of the project was successfully tested.