Vancouver’s Vandrico launches MineSafe Smartwatch with Illumiti and SAP

Vancouver’s Vandrico Solutions has partnered with Richmond Hill, Ontario SAP channel partner Illumiti to launch the MineSafe Smartwatch, a product developed using SAP’s HANA platform, to help miners respond to dangerous workplace situations using its Canary platform.

Enabling real-time communication between miners underground and support staff on the surface, the Canary platform powering the MineSafe Smartwatch analyzes real-time data to identify worker locations in the event of an emergency and provides automated safety guidance to workers.

“Mine workers can use a one-touch distress call feature to send an urgent notice to the surface,” said Vandrico CEO Gonzalo Tudela. “The surface system is designed to send immediate alerts to key personnel and emergency responders based on the type of incident being reported – which can enhance response time and reduce risk to other workers.”

The platform and watch solutions were developed through a collaboration between Vandrico, Illumiti and SAP’s Co-Innovation Lab.

Using sensors in the mine, the platform can detect potential hazards and generally monitor conditions underground.

“Our watch leverages Wi-Fi and sensors in the mine to provide mine workers with greater situational awareness, facilitate communications and accelerate evacuations,” said Illumiti Vice-President of R&D Lorraine Howell.  “Using our worker tracking feature, the mining company can quickly identify the location of each miner in real time from the surface during an emergency, enabling safety teams to quickly locate missing team members.  Localized evacuation messages can also be sent based on worker location in the mine.”

The platform can be hosted either on-premise or in the cloud, alerting personnel to potential situations that can then be communicated via alerts or evacuation protocols to the appropriate employees.

Canary can be integrated with existing mine enterprise systems such as SCADA and MQTT, or with sensors configured to work with a mine’s current system.