Communication and tracking system performance

Clear measurement and communication of real-time miner locations is critical in today’s mining environment. This chapter describes a baseline deployment of a mesh-based tracking and communication system, then compares it to a predictive simulation model. Standard metrics used to describe the performance of both the physical baseline and the predictive simulation are defined. The baseline test site is a physical mine where the communication and tracking system is compliant with federal and state regulations. The comparison shows that predicted results exceeded measured results for most metric values. Variations in the comparison technique were evaluated for their impact on this outcome. It was determined that the method used for predicting the performance of a tracking system is in line with observed performance. More importantly, it was demonstrated using standardized metrics that predicted measures and observed values could both be used to describe a given tracking system because, in general, measured values and observed trends are similar.