Positioning and alerts where satellites can’t reach
An industrial watch with UWB positioning and vital-sign alerts for crews working underground, where there is no satellite signal.
Industry challenge
Blind spots between reader stations
An energy group running underground coal mines could log a worker’s location just when they passed a reader station, leaving blind spots in between. Accidents were often found by co-workers and reported by phone.
01
No signal underground
No satellite signal underground and a patchy public network.
02
Limited power budget
Battery capacity and radio power are limited by safety requirements for hazardous environments.
03
Surface-only charging
Charging happens on the surface.
Solution
An industrial watch built for the tunnels
An industrial watch with UWB, a six-axis motion sensor and PPG heart-rate and SpO₂ sensing. UWB base stations along the tunnels provide positioning, with inertial navigation filling the gaps.
Sensors
UWB, six-axis motion sensor, PPG heart-rate and SpO₂
Positioning
UWB base stations along the tunnels, with inertial navigation filling the gaps
Update rate
Location updates at one-second intervals
Alerts
Alerts on abnormal vital-sign readings
Integration
Existing dispatch platform, through standard interfaces
Platforms used
Where this design starts
Results
What changed
Figures for this anonymised project are not published.
Worker location is tracked along the tunnels, not only when a worker passes a reader station.
Abnormal vital-sign readings raise an alert on the dispatch platform, instead of relying on co-workers to find an incident and report it by phone.
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