Deploying a Wireless Sensor Network on the Coal Mines

In this paper we describe our experiences using a wireless sensor network to monitor the coal mines with sensors. Wireless networks that link sensors have the potential to greatly benefit for monitoring of coal mine conditions and localization of miners. Substituting light, small wireless sensor network nodes for traditional wired, heavy and fixed monitoring equipment leads to faster, easier and larger-scale deployments in complicated environment. Network consisted of many wireless sensor nodes is now feasible in practice. The primary problem of designing a wireless sensor network for coal mine monitoring and localization of miners is the high system reliability and robustness demanded by its application and safety. The topology of sensor networks is also a main factor we have to take into account. The sensor network application we designed for coal mine monitoring bases on Berkeley TinyOS and Motes platform. We evaluate this design and gain some useful experiences which will benefit our subsequent work.