Cohda Wireless adapts V2X solution for Mongolian mine

Intelligent transport company Cohda Wireless is applying its vehicle positioning solution to the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia to drive safety and productivity.

In its first use for mining, Cohda’s V2X-Locate technology is being deployed at the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, managed by Rio Tinto, to provide vehicle and personnel location accuracy.

V2X-Locate was initially developed to solve vehicle positioning accuracy challenges inherent in the urban canyons of cities where large buildings, underground parking lots and tunnels interfere with GNSS signals. Using dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) signals, Cohda’s signal processing and positioning algorithms provide highly accurate vehicle position irrespective of GNSS availability or quality.

Cohda Wireless is headquartered in Australia and has offices in Europe, the United States and China. Its V2X (Vehicle-To-Everything) technology connects vehicles with each other and with roadside infrastructure to create a cooperative and intelligent transport environment.

The system can integrate and manage location data from multiple sensor types with sub-meter accuracy throughout the mine site, said Paul Gray, Cohda Wireless CEO. He called it a significant improvement on using a combination of disparate collision avoidance systems across the mining environment, as is usually the case.

“When you have hundreds of vehicles and personnel operating in close proximity underground, a meter matters. And whilst the prevention of injury and death is always the top priority, we also know that the ability to visualize, optimize and monitor vehicles brings significant operational benefits and efficiencies,” Gray said.

More than 200 mining vehicles of all types are being fitted with Cohda’s XBU-V specially adapted on-board units that connect vehicles to each other and to XBU-I roadside units installed in mine tunnels. Mining vehicles are fitted with a human-machine interface that will notify operators to warn them of potential collisions. More than 2,000 personnel will use V2X-Locate-compatible cap lamps, enabling time-of-flight analysis of wireless signals to resolve spatial locations.