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Underground coal mining, where the air decides.

Coal seams release methane and dust that can explode, and the rules treat both as life-or-death measurements. The observation network watches gas and air in every district, carries communication and tracking designed to survive an emergency, measures methane drainage for safety and emissions reporting, and uses equipment approved for explosive atmospheres.

Industry

Mining

Measurements

6

Sources cited

7

1. Mining · Underground coal mining

   Methane, dust and the rules that follow them

   Coal seams hold methane, and cutting coal makes dust. Ventilation, drainage and stone dusting keep both below the point of danger, and the rules require continuous proof. Observation in a coal mine is first a safety system: it must alarm, trip power and keep people in contact even when the mine is at its worst.

2. What is measured

   Gas, air, smoke and drainage

   Methane heads sit at faces, returns and belt entries; carbon monoxide and smoke sensors watch belts and drives; airflow and pressure sensors watch fans, regulators and bleeders. Personal dust monitors record exposure by shift, and drainage boreholes and pipelines are measured for flow, purity and pressure.

   Instruments

   Methane · Carbon monoxide · Airflow · Dust · Drainage flow

3. The base node

   Alarm and trip logic close to the gas

   Each station’s base node holds its own alarm and trip logic, so power is cut by the station when methane rises, whatever happens to the network. It signs and stores every reading, carries battery backup through a power loss and reports the state of every head to the surface.

4. Radio and links

   Communication that survives the worst day

   Fibre carries the atmospheric monitoring system to the surface. A leaky feeder serves voice, mesh nodes pass messages around a damaged section, and private LTE adds capacity where approved equipment allows. A second path to the surface and battery backup are part of the design, not an afterthought.

   Radio

   Leaky feeder · Mesh · Fibre · Private LTE

5. How it works

   From a methane head to a power trip

   A methane head reports over a serial line to the industrial gateway, which passes the value over OPC UA to the edge node. The node checks it against the plan’s levels, signs it and sends it up the fibre. If the level is crossed, the trip happens locally before anyone reads the alarm.

6. From order to operation · Order

   Scope the districts, the gas and the rules

   The scope reads the mine’s ventilation plan, gas and dust history, emergency response plan and the rules that apply to it. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns the monitoring points per district, the communication and tracking design, the approvals each item of equipment needs and a price per district, with the methane drainage measurement scoped alongside.

   Plan a deployment

7. From order to operation · Survey

   Survey intakes, returns and belts

   Engineers travel intakes, returns, belt entries and the drainage plant with the mine’s ventilation and electrical staff. They confirm sensor positions against the ventilation plan, cable and power routes, existing feeder coverage and the second path to the surface, and record each position against the mine’s survey grid.

8. From order to operation · Permits

   Approved equipment, approved plans

   Every item installed where methane may be present carries the approval or certification its zone requires, and the atmospheric monitoring and communication plans are submitted where the regulator asks for them. Drainage and emissions measurement is aligned with the reporting the jurisdiction requires.

9. From order to operation · Build

   Build to the approvals

   Stations are assembled from approved components only, configured with their alarm and trip levels and tested as complete assemblies on the surface. Drainage flow and purity measurement is built for the gas plant. Each assembly is enrolled with its identity and documented against its approval.

   Open the Station Builder

10. From order to operation · Install

    Install under the mine’s controls

    Installation follows gas checks, permits to work and the mine’s production schedule. Backbone and feeder go in first, then gas, airflow and carbon monoxide stations at the planned points, tracking readers and communication nodes, and the drainage instruments at boreholes, pipelines and the plant.

11. From order to operation · Commission

    Commission alarms and trips end to end

    Each node proves its identity, then gas heads are calibrated with test gas and alarms and trips are exercised from the sensor to the surface and back to the power controls. Tracking and two-way communication are tested along every escapeway, and the results are signed into the record.

12. From order to operation · Operate

    The responsible person sees every district

    The surface console shows methane, airflow and carbon monoxide by district, belts and fans, drainage flow and purity, and every tracked person. An alarm arrives with its trend and the action the plan sets out, and every acknowledgement and action is logged against it.

13. From order to operation · Maintain

    Calibrate, move and record

    Gas heads are calibrated on the schedule the rules set, stations move as panels advance and retreat, and tracking and communication are retested after every change. Software reaches the fleet in rings, and the record shows what was changed, by whom and why.

    Book field services

14. Data products

    Safety records and emissions records

    The responsible person sees every district’s atmosphere with its alarms; health teams receive dust exposure records; gas engineers receive drainage volumes for utilisation and emissions reporting; the emergency coordinator sees tracking and communication status. Every product carries the calibration and approval behind it.

    See the data products

15. Evidence

    Approved, calibrated, signed

    Each installed item is listed with its approval for the zone it serves, each gas head with its calibration history, and every alarm, trip and acknowledgement as a signed event. The record follows the rules that govern underground coal and the reporting rules for methane, so inspectors can check it themselves.

    Drawn against

    30 CFR Parts 70 and 75 · MINER Act · ATEX · IECEx · Regulation (EU) 2024/1787

16. What you get

    Mine, plant and port site monitoring

    Slope radar, tailings monitoring, dust and water, and site connectivity for operations and closure. Delivered as managed service and hardware + software, for mining, heavy industry, ports. Scale: Site portfolios. Service levels are written as numbers you can measure on your own dashboard.

    Talk to sales

17. Next step

    Plan underground coal mining with us

    Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for underground coal mining. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.

    Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio

01The place and its hazards

Where it runs, and what can go wrong.

Operating contextLongwall and room-and-pillar mines cut coal from seams that hold methane. Ventilation dilutes the gas and carries it away, drainage boreholes capture part of it before mining, and roadways are dusted with stone to stop coal dust from propagating an explosion. Rules for gas examinations, approved equipment, dust exposure and post-accident communication are among the most prescriptive in any industry.

Hazards

• Methane accumulation and ignition
• Propagation of an explosion by coal dust
• Respirable coal mine dust and crystalline silica exposure
• Loss of ventilation or reversal of airflow
• Spontaneous combustion in worked-out and sealed areas
• Failure of communication and tracking after an incident

02What must be measured

What, where, how often, and under which rules.

Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.

03The observation stack

From one base unit to a network.

The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.

1. 01

   Base unit

   A base node approved for its zone reads gas heads and airflow sensors, holds its own alarm and trip logic and keeps working on battery through a power trip.

   Build a station →
2. 02

   Site

   A district or longwall panel: gas, air and carbon monoxide stations, tracking readers and communication nodes on a backbone that reaches the surface by more than one path.

   Plan a site →
3. 03

   Fleet

   All districts, belts and the drainage plant run as one fleet, with one atmospheric monitoring picture for the responsible person on the surface.

   Managed offers →
4. 04

   Network

   A company’s mines and its methane utilisation sites share one emissions record and one standard of evidence.

   The open protocol →

• 01Gas detector (industrial)
• 02Flow meter
• 03OT gateway (OPC UA, Modbus)
• 04Deployable mesh comms kit
• 05Edge node (Wedge)
• 06Fibre terminal
• 07Battery case
• 08Shelter

Radio and links

Leaky feeder

Long established in coal mines for voice, a feeder can also carry data; designs keep a path that survives the loss of a section.

Radio and links

Mesh network

Node-to-node mesh keeps communication and tracking alive when part of the network is lost, which is what post-accident communication rules aim for.

Radio and links

Fibre

Fibre carries the atmospheric monitoring system to the surface without electrical energy in the cable.

Radio and links

Private LTE

Where approved equipment is available for the location, private LTE adds capacity for video and data, usually starting in intake airways.

Edge computeAtmospheric monitoring logic runs locally and on the surface: alarms, trip signals and trends never depend on a remote link, and the responsible person sees the state of every district.

PowerEvery monitoring and communication node carries battery backup, so gas monitoring, tracking and two-way communication continue after a power loss, as emergency response plans require.

04How it works

From the instrument to the product.

One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.

05From order to operation

Every step, from the first call to a running site.

The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.

1. 01 Order

   Scope the districts, the gas and the rules

   The scope reads the mine’s ventilation plan, gas and dust history, emergency response plan and the rules that apply to it. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns the monitoring points per district, the communication and tracking design, the approvals each item of equipment needs and a price per district, with the methane drainage measurement scoped alongside. 16

2. 02 Survey

   Survey intakes, returns and belts

   Engineers travel intakes, returns, belt entries and the drainage plant with the mine’s ventilation and electrical staff. They confirm sensor positions against the ventilation plan, cable and power routes, existing feeder coverage and the second path to the surface, and record each position against the mine’s survey grid.

3. 03 Permits

   Approved equipment, approved plans

   Every item installed where methane may be present carries the approval or certification its zone requires, and the atmospheric monitoring and communication plans are submitted where the regulator asks for them. Drainage and emissions measurement is aligned with the reporting the jurisdiction requires. 275

4. 04 Build

   Build to the approvals

   Stations are assembled from approved components only, configured with their alarm and trip levels and tested as complete assemblies on the surface. Drainage flow and purity measurement is built for the gas plant. Each assembly is enrolled with its identity and documented against its approval.

5. 05 Install

   Install under the mine’s controls

   Installation follows gas checks, permits to work and the mine’s production schedule. Backbone and feeder go in first, then gas, airflow and carbon monoxide stations at the planned points, tracking readers and communication nodes, and the drainage instruments at boreholes, pipelines and the plant.

6. 06 Commission

   Commission alarms and trips end to end

   Each node proves its identity, then gas heads are calibrated with test gas and alarms and trips are exercised from the sensor to the surface and back to the power controls. Tracking and two-way communication are tested along every escapeway, and the results are signed into the record.

7. 07 Operate

   The responsible person sees every district

   The surface console shows methane, airflow and carbon monoxide by district, belts and fans, drainage flow and purity, and every tracked person. An alarm arrives with its trend and the action the plan sets out, and every acknowledgement and action is logged against it.

8. 08 Maintain

   Calibrate, move and record

   Gas heads are calibrated on the schedule the rules set, stations move as panels advance and retreat, and tracking and communication are retested after every change. Software reaches the fleet in rings, and the record shows what was changed, by whom and why.

06Data products and integration

What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.

Data products

• Atmospheric monitoring by district with alarmsResponsible person on the surface, shift supervisors
• Respirable dust exposure recordsHealth and safety teams, regulators
• Methane drainage and emissions recordsGas engineers, environmental and reporting teams
• Tracking and communication statusControl room and emergency response
• Calibration and approval registerElectrical engineers and inspectors

Integration

• Mine control and power systemsAlarm and trip signals are exchanged over OPC UA and the controls’ own interfaces, so power cut-off acts through approved circuits.
• Gas utilisation or flare plantDrainage flow, purity and pressure are shared with the plant’s controller and the emissions record.
• Emergency response planLast known positions and communication status are presented to the emergency coordinator.
• Emissions reportingMeasured methane volumes are exported for the inventory and the reports the jurisdiction requires.

Exchanged through OPC UA (IEC 62541), IEC 60079 series, OGC SensorThings API.

07Questions buyers ask

Before you scope it.

Can you install in areas where methane may be present?

Only equipment with the approval or certification required for that location is installed there. The approval of each item is kept in the record.

Does it replace the required gas examinations?

No. Continuous monitoring supports, and never replaces, the examinations the rules require from qualified people.

How does communication survive an emergency?

The design avoids single points of failure: a second path to the surface, battery backup and mesh nodes that pass messages around a damaged section.

Can drainage measurement support emissions reporting?

Yes. Flow, purity and pressure are measured continuously with calibration records, so the methane volumes reported can be traced to the readings behind them.

08Resources

The sources behind this page.

Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.

1. 130 CFR Part 75: Mandatory safety standards, underground coal minesUS Mine Safety and Health Administration (eCFR)
2. 2Directive 2014/34/EU on equipment for potentially explosive atmospheres (ATEX)European Union · 2014
3. 330 CFR Part 70: Mandatory health standards, underground coal minesUS Mine Safety and Health Administration (eCFR)
4. 4Best Practice Guidance for Effective Methane Drainage and Use in Coal MinesUnited Nations Economic Commission for Europe
5. 5Regulation (EU) 2024/1787 on the reduction of methane emissions in the energy sectorEuropean Union · 2024
6. 6Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act)US Congress · 2006
7. 7IECEx System: certification to the IEC 60079 series for explosive atmospheresInternational Electrotechnical Commission

09Related

Use cases and solutions.

10Mining: specialized fields

Other fields of this industry.

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