Industry 4.0
partnering with telecommunications
provider Vivo on what will be the first
mining operation in Brazil to deploy a
private LTE solution.
“It will be used to control
autonomous mining equipment –
such as ore trucks and drill rigs – for
increased productivity and worker
safety. Mine-wide communications
between workers will also be part of the
use-case as well.”
He continues: “At the same time,
we’re also working with Sandvik
Mining and Rock Technology to
deploy a private wireless network at
its test mine in Tampere, Finland, this
time based on 5G. That will cover
use-cases from communication to fleet
automation, analytics and health and
safety. Our Digital Automation Cloud
(DAC) will allow Sandvik to securely
collect, process and host all proprietary
data on site.”
As is the case with BT’s Spencer,
Calabrese is hugely optimistic about the
potential of the technology, particularly
when it comes to the provision of what
he refers to as “ubiquitous connectivity,
with more bandwidth and low latency”.
This will be particularly relevant, he
believes, for “physical asset-intensive”
industries, such as the aforementioned
transportation, manufacturing and, of
course, mining.
Discussing the issues facing mining
in particular, he says: “The mining
industry considers workplace safety
as top priority, with ‘total recordable
injury frequency’ (TRIF) consistently
appearing as a key metric in their
annual reports. Ninety per cent of
mining accidents are caused by human
error or worker fatigue.
“These are, frankly, extremely
dangerous environments, where people
are called not only to work in remote
locations, but also in proximity to
heavy machinery and moving vehicles,
as well as dealing with explosives. They
are often also very confined, noisy
spaces, where employees are in contact
with hazardous substances.”
He continues: “With that in mind,
organisations now have the opportunity
– thanks to COVID-19, as it turns out
– to implement long-delayed changes
to the way these facilities operate. With
many operations either suspended or
reduced, the pandemic has led to an
ability to re-think safety protocols,
procedures, personal protection, and
indeed the mine’s whole future mode of
operations.
“This in turn has led to companies
looking to extend and utilise
communications technologies in
new ways. This includes asset health
tracking, process automation
and even monitoring the health of
staff members.”
The important subject of worker
safety leads us very neatly back to the
issue of how to convince potential
customers of the use-case. If what
Calabrese says is true, after all, it sounds
rather like the technology has the
ability to sell itself, at least within
certain verticals.
Addressing this, he says: “Many of
our customers are indeed showing a
fervent interest in the potential of this
technology.
We now have many examples of
industrial customers/ecosystem partners
being able to set
up 5G trial networks in order to test
the technology in the real world. They
want to validate their use-cases
with OEMs, machine vendors and
system integrators.
“We now have customers in markets
like Germany, Japan and the UK, where
their vertical local spectrum is only
suitable for 5G. So, they are looking for
early adoption. Today, Nokia has more
than 30 enterprise customers who are
relevant to this conversation.”
Continuing on the subject of
spectrum, Calabrese believes that local
limitations in relation to 4.9G are also
likely to lead to a massive uptick in
organisations rolling out private wireless
networks, a la the Carajás mine in
Brazil. He backs this up with figures
published by technology specialist
ABI Research.
“The private wireless market is
expected to grow to €16.3bn in 2025,”
he says. “We also predict the potential
for more than 14 million global
industrial sites to be equipped with
private wireless connectivity in the
coming decade.”
He continues: “According to Nokia
Bell Labs, when considering 5G, the
performance of 4.9G/LTE is good
enough for more than 85 per cent of
today’s applications.
“They therefore provide a costeffective
and fast way to connect with
billions of IoT-enabled devices and
assets on industrial sites.
“Once enterprises are ready to make
the switch to 5G – when the ecosystem
is mature, or they are introducing new
use-cases – the upgrade from 4.9G/LTE
will be seamless.”
According to 3GPP, Release 16 is
a considerable step forward from its
predecessor, addressing issues such
as efficiency and operation (selfoptimising
networks, MIMO and so
on), as well as expanding the potential
for use across different verticals. It will
be interesting to see the degree to which
capability continues to drive investment
(and vice versa) in the months and years
to come.
The mining
environment can
be extremely
hazardous
Adobe Stock/John
October 2020 @CritCommsToday 49