CHARM project announcement

Originally our signal mapping solution was made for the public safety agencies and it has never been used underground. Since SAF Tehnika and other partners are using or developing wireless sensors within the scope of the CHARM project and the fact that we did have problems with connectivity to the network, we saw an opportunity to use our product to measure the signal strength in the mines. Signal strength is crucial for the ability to use all kinds of wireless technologies.

To use our signal mapping solution, we will have to modify it to enable its use in places without connectivity to the global positioning system (GPS or others), as well as develop special Aranet sensors to work as continuous signal transmitters. These new developments and improvements require changes in both, hardware and software.

The goal of this task is to get a complete picture of the wireless environment coverage down in the mines, which will help us and our partners in planning a better placement of the measurement devices and will tell if any adjustments are required in the network access points as well as visualize signal strength in the form of a heatmap. To accomplish this goal, we will measure the signal strength at two frequencies, namely, 868 MHz and 2.4 GHz. These two frequencies should cover the majority of the equipment that is used or will be used in the mines for measurements and also for network connectivity.