Falls and dangerous items no longer threaten miners.

Surface mining is routine at numerous locations. Giant excavators cut the pieces of soil, layer by layer, and conveyor belts take the material away. However, a completely non-standard situation arose in the North Bohemian brown coal basin, when history interfered with mining. The Bílina mine area features various dangerous items like unexploded Nazi ammunition from the second World War. And since the control cabin of the K10000/K74 mining machine is located very close to the excavator, there is a risk that a potential explosion will directly endanger the operator’s life and health.

After ENELEX’s long-term experience with the Axis IP cameras, there was no other choice but to base the whole system right on this brand. Reliability and durability under heavy conditions were a must, and the biggest enemies were dustiness and vibration during the machine’s operation. In total, 18 AXIS Q3505-VE Network Cameras have been installed to deliver video to three different locations, providing a secure working environment for employees.

During the second half of the war, Bohemia served Nazi Germany as a major supplier of weapon systems and equipment for its military. The occupied allied country avoided the heavy raids that plagued Germany, but still did not escape the war. One of the targets was a chemical factory located near Most. During one raid, it was bombed along with an anti-aircraft battery that protected it, and the remains of these batteries are a threat to the miners now. The batteries were to fire 105- and 128-mm caliber fragmentation projectiles to the height of 10 km, where they then exploded and to damage or destroy enemy bombers.

Installed directly on the control cabin, there are two AXIS Q3505-VE Network Cameras, each with its 105° viewing angle. Together with the other monitoring cameras, they feed 5 vertical monitors in the control room. Everything must be absolutely synchronized, 30 frames per second in maximum resolution, and almost zero latency. To achieve seamless transmission without any interference, it was necessary to install hardware whose performance exceeds the commonly used specifications several times. The core of the system consists of a 10 Gbit network for connecting servers and main client stations, and the camera backbone optical links are gigabit ones.

The old K10000/K74 colossus got much younger thanks to its new cameras. Not only do the cameras replace the man in the excavator control cabin now, another 16 cameras are also located at various locations on the machine’s surface, providing complete video monitoring of the individual segments. They provide the operator with a view of the surroundings when moving his mining machine and of all its vital components. Although the crew remains the same, no lives are at risk while mining in dangerous zones. Overall, the machine contains one control computer and 4 client computers. The first one with five monitors is designed for controlling the machine from its backup control cabin, the second one features a total of 4 monitors for the crew’s overview of the machine’s operation, and the other two computers are used during regular operation in the “excavator operator” and “shutter operator” cabins, fed by 8 other cameras.