ETHERNET ON A LONGWALL SHEARER

Introduction

As part of the ACARP Landmark Longwall Automation Project an Ethernet connection was
established to a longwall shearer in order to communicate with on-board navigation and
automation systems. Because such a connection has the potential for broader applications in the
industry, this article discusses specifically how the Ethernet link from the surface to the shearer
was set up at the test mine.

Why Ethernet? A reliable communications link between the longwall main gate and the shearer
and then to the surface is a basic prerequisite for longwall automation. The main requirement is
that the link must support the increasing bandwidth requirements of a modern control system,
including data from intelligent sensors and video equipment, which is beyond the capacity of
existing shearer cable-based asynchronous serial communications systems.

Network Topology

South Bulga Colliery, the mine collaborating in the ACARP project has a wired Ethernet
connection from the surface to the longwall main gate with optical fibre and category 5 Ethernet
cabling (100base T) providing the physical connection.

The issue for the Landmark Project was the shearer-maingate Ethernet segment. Significant
technology developments would be required to achieve Ethernet-grade communications over the
shearer cable so, given the time constraints of the project, a wireless Ethernet (802.11b) system
was installed and trialled successfully on the longwall to provide constant communications to the
shearer over the entire face length.

Surface
Surface Computer Cat-5 Ethernet
(Mine Ethernet Network) Switch

Cat-5 / Fibre
Ethernet Converter

SURFACE ETHERNET TOPOLOGY

Fibre
UNDERGROUND ETHERNET TOPOLOGY
Longwall Conveyor
Drivehead

Ethernet
Switch

Drivehead
Computer

Fibre: Segments Fastened to the

Longwall Roof up to the Longwall Pump Station,
then in Segments along the
Shearer Landmark PC-104 Longwall Monorail
Industrial Computer
Ethernet Serial
Server - Linked to Longwall Main Gate
Shearer Controller
Flameproof Main Gate
PLC
Ethernet
Switch

Main Gate
SCADA PC
2.4 GHz
Wireless
Wireless Ethernet Ethernet Wireless Ethernet
Workgroup Bridge Access Point

Figure 1 - Ethernet Network Topology at the South Bulga Coal Mine

Optical Fibre Ethernet Network

In order to achieve the distances necessary for Ethernet to reach the longwall, optical fibre cable
provides the main backbone for the underground network. There are two fibre segments used to
extend the Ethernet link to the longwall.

The first segment is the main backbone fibre that consists of an 8-core, multimode, loose-tube fibre
cable that was permanently installed at the same time as the main trunk conveyor. This cable is
installed in approx 500m lengths and the individual fibre joins are permanently spliced. The cable
has been used in the past to carry Allen-Bradley DH+ and video from cameras at the conveyor
transfers. In this application two cores of the cable that terminate at the longwall drive head are
used to carry Ethernet traffic.

At the longwall drive head there are two media converters (which convert from optical fibre to
100baseT Ethernet), one 100Mb switch and a PC, all located in a flameproof enclosure. This PC
has the same functionality as any PC on the surface.

Figure 2 Drive Head PC and Enclosure

From the drive head PC enclosure, 350m lengths of 4-core tight-buffered fibre are cable-tied to the
roof. The 350m sections are installed so that a connected join is available at all proposed longwall
pump station locations. From the pump station there are five sections of monorail that supply all
services to the longwall. Each section of monorail has a 128m section of tight-buffered 4-core
fibre. The fibre is terminated into the maingate control and monitoring flameproof enclosure. All
the joins on the tight-buffered cable are very simple. The cable is terminated with standard ST fibre
connectors and glanded into plastic junction boxes.

To aid underground fault finding, an inexpensive test light source comprising 4 ST connectors and
high-intensity white LEDs was constructed in a small plastic box. To test the integrity of all the
cable segments, this box is connected to the tight-buffered cable at the drive head, providing a light
source for each core that should be easily visible at the optical connectors at the maingate. If a
fault is present, it can be easily isolated to within a cable segment. The use of optical connectors
allows the affected cable segment to be conveniently changed out as a complete unit.

There have been some problems with the fibre in such a harsh environment, particularly due to ST
connectors being detached from the 350m cable sections as the cable is being reclaimed. This can
easily be fixed as the cable is taken to the surface for inspection before it is reinstalled in the next
gate road.

Cat-5 Ethernet Network

Inside the main gate control flameproof, a media converter is used to extend the Ethernet
connection to Cat-5 copper cable. This forms the uplink connection to an 8-way Ethernet switch,
the distribution point of the longwall face network for a variety of equipment:

A PLC for face equipment control and monitoring.

A local PC that has the same functionality as a desktop PC on the surface, operated via an
intrinsically safe keyboard. It can run standard office applications such as email, Internet,
Intranet, stores control, chemical data sheet access and the mine-wide SCADA system.

A Wireless Ethernet Access Point to extend the Ethernet connection to the shearer.

A network camera has also been trialled. This is a video camera with a built-in web server
and Ethernet connection. If this camera is connected to an Ethernet network, any PC on
the network can access the video via a standard web browser.

Figure 3 Shearer and Operator Viewed from the Longwall Maingate Web
Camera
Wireless Ethernet Network

The use of Wireless Ethernet technology enables the underground network to extend to the
shearer itself. The equipment used for the Wireless Ethernet network is based on the IEEE
802.11b standard, which operates in the 2.4GHz spectrum with a maximum bandwidth of 11Mbps.
The standard allows for two modes of connection between different pieces of wireless equipment:
ad-hoc and infrastructure. The infrastructure mode of operation (which requires the use of an
Access Point) is used where a Wireless Ethernet node is joined to a wired LAN, as is the case at
the South Bulga colliery.

The Access Point is located in the flameproof maingate control box. Two antenna connections are
made via a pair of IS barriers. On the shearer itself, a similar arrangement is employed to connect
the antenna leads into the radio box flameproof, where a Workgroup Bridge is mounted. The
Workgroup Bridge is configured to seek out a wireless association with any Access Points that
are in range: once the association is made, standard Ethernet packets can be exchanged via the
wireless link.

The selection of suitable antennas for the underground environment involved an extensive period
of testing. Factors to be considered included not only the performance of the antennas (defined in
terms of signal strength versus distance), but also their capacity to withstand long-term exposure to
the underground environment. The initial configuration was comprised of a high-gain Yagi antenna
at the main gate and a pair of dipole (rubber duck style) antennas mounted on the shearer. While
the performance of this system in terms of transmission distance was excellent (with a working
range of up to 150 metres), the Yagi antenna proved to be too bulky (the actual Yagi array was
enclosed in a 45 cm long, 8 cm wide plastic tube) to survive in the underground environment.
Further tests were performed using a variety of antenna combinations, including dipoles, Yagis,
and patch antennas. The best combination of performance and durability resulted from a
combination of directional patch antennas mounted at the main gate, linking to a pair of dipole
antennas on the shearer itself. Combining a pair of patches at the main gate further improved the
performance, as it exploits the diversity capabilities of the wireless equipment. A diversity system
is especially effective where there is a high degree of multipath interference caused by the
reflection of the RF signal from metallic structures (again, an obvious characteristic of the longwall
face, bordered as it is by the AFC rail and the roof support chocks). With this antenna
configuration, the working range of the wireless link was extended to over 200 metres across the
face.

In order to provide for complete full-face coverage when face geometry limits line-of-sight
communications, further Access Points can be installed across the face, and linked to the main
gate by means of a fibre network connection.

Shearer-based Ethernet applications

On the shearer the Workgroup Bridge is connected to an Ethernet hub which then allows shearer-
mounted devices to connect to the mine-wide Ethernet. Two applications are currently utilising the
shearer ethernet connection:

As part of the Landmark research project into longwall automation, an inertial navigation
system (INS) is located on the shearer to provide accurate 3D measurement of shearer
position and orientation. A PC-104 format industrial computer controls and formats
information from the INS which is then transmitted over the Ethernet segments described
above to a processing computer on the surface.

An Ethernet serial server interfaces to the shearer control processor over an RS232 serial
link. This device has allowed convenient debugging of various problems with the shearer
haulage system. A computer on the surface can connect via the Ethernet directly to the
 haulage controller so that critical signals can be monitored and trended. This system has
been very valuable in improving the performance of the shearer.
Conclusions

Given a properly planned and implemented system, an underground Ethernet network can
achieve a high level of reliability, even when extended using wireless technology to moving
equipment like the longwall shearer.

The network can be implemented using commercial, off-the-shelf Ethernet components and
standard hardware such as ST optical connectors.

Access to such an established network protocol as Ethernet opens up enormous possibilities

for underground monitoring and control applications.

The basic Ethernet network connection to all face equipment provides for the future
implementation of emerging modern industrial control protocols such as Ethernet/IP. This
control approach will be used in future longwall automation activities.