Wi-Fi Solution for an Open Pit Mine

An open pit mine in Central Queensland had recently equipped their heavy vehicles with driver and vehicle monitoring technology that used Wi-Fi to interface back to a server on-site for realtime processing.

The Wi-Fi network had to operate at 2.4GHz due to the monitoring system limitations thus the backhaul had to operate on another frequency to reduce RF(Radio Frequency) noise.

For this reason RVC proposed Unifi Wi-Fi solution using AirMax Radios for backhaul.

RVC outfitted 4 solar and battery powered trailers with a Unifi Access Point Mesh using 10dBi Omni antenna, Rocket Gen2 AC using 45° 19dBi antenna and an EdgePoint 6R as a PoE VLAN-aware switch.

The EdgePoint 6R powered bothed the Rocket Gen2 ACs and Unifi Access Point using the trailer's onboard battery system.

The trailers would be positioned throughout the mine to point back to a central tower with two Rocket Gen2 AC using 120° titanium sector antennas. These sectors were powered by an EdgeSwitch 8 with a EdgePower being used as an UPS located in a hut next to the central tower. The UPS was designed to provide 5 days of continous power in case of power outage.

The sectors had split SSIDs with 2 trailers designated for each sector to eliminate any SSID hopping where the sectors would overlap.

From our off-site and on-site testing we managed to achieve reliable Wi-Fi connectivity up to 1km from the trailers.