As private wireless networks, including the latest generation in 5G, help revolutionize mission-critical industries across the country, mining stands out as a place where connectivity can foster significant improvements, from safety to efficiency and productivity to better sustainability. Mining operations can be optimized by collecting and analyzing tracking data on the real-time location and performance of vehicles, equipment, and workforce.

The last few years have seen the mining industry investing strongly in Industry 4.0 solutions triggering a sharp shift towards digitalization and automation of the entire mining operation chain. From the pit and port to the control center. Mining companies are increasingly harnessing digital technologies to reinvent operations, enhance safety, optimize productivity, and stay competitive. Further advances in technologies like IIoT, AI, AR VR, and XR (extended reality) will unlock opportunities to leverage data and automation to optimize performance across the mining industry's four KPIs – productivity, efficiency safety & sustainability. 

However, mining companies need high-performance and reliable wireless connectivity to get the best out of these technologies and the digital applications they enable. This can be tough to achieve in the industry's challenging open pit and underground environments. 

So, how do mining companies enable reliable wireless communications to underground environments with narrow corridors, gigantic rock walls, and constantly changing layouts?  environments? How do they meet the critical connectivity demands of enormous machines, mobile workers, and huge vehicles in harsh open pits?

Private wireless networks, specifically Private 5G networks, are the answer. These support pervasive, consistent, and high-performance connectivity to accelerate the digitization of mining operations.

Private 5G Networks – Building Connected Digital Mines

While LTE cellular technology has the features and capabilities required by the most mission-critical mining applications, Private 5G is an integral part of the solution and supports even the most advanced applications. It provides highly robust, pervasive, dependable, and secure wireless connectivity that automated mining operations demand, both above ground and underground. Private 5G harnesses 5G’s increased throughput and low latency to enable some of the most compelling use cases for smart mining.

86% of mining companies plan to invest in wireless infrastructure in the next 18 months.

Why Private 5G for Mining 4.0?

A 5G-ready private cellular network provides the richest connectivity to enable smart mining. Here’s how these networks enable and power the mining industry.

• Mine operators can support all their digital applications with only one network. A single infrastructure enables fast, reliable, and secure data, pervasive coverage, low latency remote control, and assured quality of service (QoS).
• Benefit from project-critical applications like push-to-talk (PTT) & push-to-video (PTV) communications, and real-time HD video feeds, low latency edge computing for remote and automated operations, and low-power sensor networks telemetry, camera surveillance, and IoT in underground and surface environments.
• Provides pervasive, ultra-reliable connectivity to machines, workers, sensors, and vehicles across the mine with fewer access points and extremely short response times.
• Superior connectivity = improved safety, higher productivity, new & enhanced efficiencies, and a smaller carbon footprint.
• Enhances critical communications and enables new innovative mining applications that can optimize operations. 
• Supports a massive number of active device connections per access point with far greater reliability and security than legacy network technologies.
• Enhances the ability to handle massive amounts of data exchange between multiple devices simultaneously with guaranteed network quality.
• Has a tremendous impact on worker safety, the most crucial issue in mining, laying the foundation for an optimized mine where injuries and fatalities are minimized.
• Highly optimized for IoT, providing low energy consumption, high device density, and enhanced security.

Private 5G for Smart Mining Factsheet

Reduce round-trip latency by 95%, providing the high uplink speed required for smart mine use cases.

Enable 8K resolution images, capitalizing on highly efficient image encoding algorithms.

- Ericsson Connected Mining Report

Smart mining promises to reduce fatalities by 10% and injuries by 20% over the next decade. 

 - Accenture and the World Economic Forum

The global smart mining business will triple its size by 2025, and 25% of operations will be automated in mines.

- Ericsson Study

Conclusion

As mining operators strive to boost productivity & efficiency, attain safety & sustainability, and improve shareholder value, they must reimagine their operations and harness new digital technologies. Also, as automation becomes increasingly integrated into mining operations, the key to final success is a revamped and transformed network that connects pits, ports, data centers, operation centers, vehicles, workers, and machinery seamlessly and consistently like a well-oiled machine. A network with bandwidth and capacity to handle high processing speeds, delivering information when and where required without compromise. A private 5G network ticks on all these and more.

Amantya’s Private 5G Solution – Astra5G

Amantya brings together 5G, IoT, Edge, Cloud Computing, MEC capabilities, industry expertise, process experience, and a robust partner ecosystem to deliver private 5G solutions that meet the unique requirements of our clients.

Amantya’s Astra5G is a 3GPP standard-compliant commercial-grade 5G solution that can have your private 5G network up and running in minutes. It is a high-performance, end-to-end, plug-and-play solution designed to meet the emerging needs of industrial enterprises exploring new-age 5G and IoT use cases. Comprising an FR1 Radio Access Network, 5G SA Core (5G Core), and a high-performance User Plane Function, Astra5G delivers high speed, reliability, and security, improving the enterprise’s productivity, connectivity, and operational flexibility. It has a powerful management portal that allows enterprises to monitor, manage and customize their private 5G network as per requirement. So, whether you need to monitor the workforce, automate operations, streamline inventory, deploy your AGVs, secure sensitive operations or create/manage multi-local networks – you are just a click away.

Amantya provides value by successfully connecting the software & hardware and ensuring that our private 5G solution maximizes our clients’ operations.

Want to understand how your company’s mining operations can capitalize on the huge opportunity that Private 5G promises? And how can we partner with you on this journey? Please get in touch, and be ready to be transformed!