This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.Sowetan reports that a revolutionary device developed by Wits University and its German counterpart has the potential to save the lives of countless miners by using trackers that can also monitor their health and warn them of impending danger.
“I think we have something special here that could become a standard piece of technology used in the mines of the future,” said Dr Frederick Cawood, director of the Mining Institute at Wits.
Building on the work of Germany’s Bremen University PhD student Idrees Zamen said the prototype was created only a month ago and all parts were ordered over the internet for a mere R800.
The research has been a collaborative effort between Wits and the University of Bremen, and makes use of wireless sensor networks technology.
“It has the advantage of a long communication range, but the miner can also carry it,” Zamen said. “And you can place nodes at various places in the mine. You don’t need special infrastructure. You can simply put the gadget on the wall. It can work on its own battery.”
The tracker has a limitless communication distance and different sensors can be attached to the node to detect gas, smoke, fire and seismic movements. It can also monitor heart rates.
After arriving in South Africa from Germany in September, Zamen created a prototype device and had a trial run in the Wits mock mine early last month.
According to the Department of Mineral Resources, there has been an 88% decrease in mining fatalities since 1993, when there were 586 fatalities compared to 81 so far this year.
Chamber of Mines spokeswoman Charmane Russell said: “The progress made over the past two decades has shown us that achieving zero harm is possible.”
The original of this report by Tanya Steenkamp is on page 2 of Sowetan of 5 December 2017
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