INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY (IJECET)

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

ISSN 0976 6464(Print) ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April, 2013, pp. 504-512 IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijecet.asp Journal Impact Factor (2013): 5.8896 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com

IJECET
IAEME

COALMINE SAFETY SYSTEM WITH ZIGBEE SPECIFICATION

Miss. Smita B. Garde1, Prof. S.L.Kotgire2
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(Dept. of Electronics & Telecommunication, M.G.M.s college of Engg. /S.R.T.M. University, Hingoli road, Nanded, India) 2 (Dept. of Electronics & Telecommunication, M.G.M.s college of Engg. /S.R.T.M. University, Hingoli road, Nanded, India)

ABSTRACT This paper provides a better solution for safety system of coalmines using Zigbee wireless sensor networking. The proposed monitoring system collects temperature, humidity and methane values at underground section of coalmine through zigbee sensor nodes and then transmits the data to the receiver section which is present at the ground section of a coalmine. When the received values cross the threshold level then buzzer will start alarming, at the same time data will be displayed on the LCD screen which is present at both ground and underground section. So that everyone present in/outside the coalmine should be alert about the accident to be happened and it should be possible to provide an immediate help if necessary. With this system it is possible to safe the manpower as well as coal as a natural fuel. Keywords: coalmine safety, LCD, monitoring system, wireless sensor node, Zigbee specification. 1. INTRODUCTION Up till now lot of systems are proposed for safety purpose of coalmines but it is observe that most of them depends on the cable or wired network, very few of them use wireless network but they are also not able to give the correct information about the number of persons present inside the coalmine at the time of accidents. Because we observe that most of them use the parameters like temperature, pressure, humidity, gas but not use such a parameter which is use to detect exact number of persons present inside the coalmine when an accident happened [1]. This system is design by considering all these parameters i.e. it can
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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

sense temperature, pressure, humidity, gas as well as number of persons can also be measured by using IR sensor nodes. When an accident happened, especially explosion, the sensors and cables usually were damaged, and couldn't provide information for rescue search and detection events so it is a better solution to design the safety system with wireless network [2]. This paper provides survey of previous work, design overview of the system, working of components used in system designing. 2. LITERATURE SURVEY As we know safety is one of the main aspects of industry specially mining industry as coal is the ultimate natural fuel of the world. To avoid any types of unwanted phenomena, all mining industries must follow some basic precautions. Communication is the main key factor for any industry today to monitor different parameters and take necessary actions accordingly to avoid any types of hazards. To avoid loss of material and damaging of human health, protection system as well as faithful communication system is necessary inside the underground mines. To increase both safety and productivity inside the mines, a reliable communication must be established between workers, moving stations, and fixed base stations in the mine. The wired communication system is not so effective inside mines. The reliability and long life of conventional communications systems in harsh mining environments has always been a problem. Due to uncomfortable situation in mines the cost of installation as well as maintenance is very high for wired communication networks. It is very difficult to re-install the wired communication system inside mines after a landslide or damage due to any reason. Due to roof fall, if by any means some workers trapped inside mines, to maintain the continuity of the communication system is very much important to know the actual position and condition of the trapped workers. To monitor other parameters during this condition it is very much necessary to maintain the communication system as usual. Accordingly, development of mine monitoring system to accurately detect temperature, pressure, flammable and poisonous gas and to track underground miners and vehicles on real-time has significant meaning to safety production and rescue of coal mine disaster [2]. Coal mine safety monitoring system based on wireless sensor network can timely and accurately reflect dynamic situation of staff in the underground regions to ground computer system. There are different other research ideas proposed by different people on wireless communication. For the successfully wireless data transmission, in this work the Zigbee specification is used to design a monitoring system. 3. DESIGN OVERVIEW Coalmines are specially divided into two main parts. The first section is underground section and another section is ground section. Underground section is the main part of a coalmine i.e. the area where actual work is done, so this section is design to sense different parameters like temperature, pressure, humidity, and poisonous gases as these parameters affects the coalmine environment adversely. The ground section is generally present outside the coalmine where the control room is present which provide accurate information and help time to time when necessary. The ground and underground sections are connected by means of a wireless link. Here a zigbee specification is used as wireless link between two sections. The overall block diagram of the system is as shown in Fig.1. The designed systems are placed in different parts of the mine. Sensors present at underground section will sense the environment conditions such as temperature, humidity, gas etc.., and this information is send to ADC of the micro controller, Microcontroller displays this information in the LCD board and sends through Zigbee transmitter. Ground section is having Zigbee receiver which collects this information and sends to the
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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

controller and controller sends the information to GSM modem and at the same time the information is displaying on the LCD present at ground section. Here GSM modem is used to send the messages to everyone present inside the mine through mobile when sensors exits there threshold level. 3.1 Under-ground section Underground section of a coalmine consists of different sensor nodes, microcontroller, Zigbee transmitter, LCD as shown in figure1. The sensor nodes sense the physical parameters like temperature, humidity, pressure which are always in analog form. These analog quantities are then sending to the microcontroller but microcontroller cannot take the data in analog form so it needs to be converted first into digital form. Thats why we must select such microcontroller which has inbuilt feature of analog to digital convertor. Here we select AVR controller. Microcontroller checks these values and sends it to the ground section through Zigbee transmitter. At the same time the values will be displayed on the LCD board, if any of the received value crossed the threshold level then buzzer will be ON giving warning to the miners. The number of people present inside the mine can also be detecting by means of IR sensor. This information plays very vital role during a hazard to know whether there are any people remained inside the coalmine. Information regarding the safety measure like wearing oxygen helmets etc., will be already given to the workers so that they can save their life.

Figure 1 General Block diagram of designed system

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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

3.2 Ground section The ground section consists of Zigbee module, microcontroller, LCD, PC and GSM modem. PC and GSM are optional. In the Ground Section, the Zigbee receiver collects the information and sends to the AVR controller. The LCD connected to the controller displays the information in the Ground Section. The officers present inside the control room take proper actions according to the displayed data on LCD and provide immediate help if necessary. In additional to this controller is also connected to PC; to store the values for future help. GSM modem is used to send the data to miners on mobile phones. 4. HARDWARE DESCRIPTION 4.1 AVR Microcontroller In short we can say that it is High-performance, Low-power 8-bit Microcontroller. It has Advanced RISC Architecture, 131 Powerful Instructions Most Single-clock Cycle Execution, 32 x 8 General Purpose Working Registers. And some extra features like it has inbuilt Flash, SRAM and EEPROM memories. It is Available in 40-Pin DIP form with inbuilt 8-Channel 10-bit ADC, Timers/Counter, separate PWM Channels, and peripherals like In System Programmer (ISP), Serial USART, SPI Interface, Digital to Analog Comparator etc. Fig.2 shows physical port of microcontroller AVR of ATmega series.

Figure 2 Physical port of AVR The parameters which we want to measure are physical parameters (i.e. in non electrical form). So as to convert it into electrical form we are using sensors. The output of sensor is in analog in nature but microcontroller is not able to read this analog form of parameters so to convert it into digital form we must require an ADC which is inbuilt in AVR controller. ADC of controller converts these quantities into digital form and analyzed it for taking proper action. After that controller ask ZIGBEE module it is ready to receive the data or not. If zigbee is ready, then controller sends these data through UART to Zigbee transceiver .The information is send to another zigbee module present at ground section. It will receive it and decodes it. Then give it to AVR controller and according to information is received, will display on LCD. Likewise information will be updated after every fixed duration [1].
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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

4.2 Zigbee module This section presents a Zigbee wireless specification used to build a safety system for coalmines. This paper prefers this specification by considering all the features like frequency bands, transmission speed etc. Instead of zigbee we may use other wireless communication link as RFID, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Wi-max. But zigbee is somewhat better than other links which will be cleared from following comparison table. Table 1 shows difference between some wireless specifications. Table 1 Comparison between wireless specifications Features Battery Life Complexity Nodes/master Latency Range Extendibility Data rate Security IEEE 802.11b Hours Very complex 32 Enumeration up to 3 seconds 100 Meters Roaming Possible 11 Mbps Authentication service set ID (SSID) Bluetooth Days Complex 7 Enumeration up to 10 seconds 10 Meters No 1 Mbps 64 bit, 128 bit Zigbee Years Simple 64000 Enumeration up to 30ms (to 1 second) 70-300 Meters Yes 250 Kbps 128 bit AES and Application layer

As we know the basic components required for any wireless communication links are transmitter, receiver, antenna and transmission medium.

Figure 3 Basic components of wireless communication link. For zigbee specification one common zigbee module can be used as a transmitter as well as receiver and called as Zigbee transceiver. It has on-chip antenna as shown in fig.4 given below.

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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

Figure 4 Zigbee transceiver In few words I would like to say: zigbee is a low cost, low power, very diverse possibility. Zigbee is a wireless networking standard that is aimed at remote control and sensor applications which is suitable for operation in harsh radio environments and in isolated locations. It is IEEE standard 802.15.4 which defines the physical and MAC layers; also Zigbee defines the application and security layer specifications enabling interoperability between products from different manufacturers. Hence we can say Zigbee is a superset of the 802.15.4 specification. The 802.15.4 standard is primarily aiming at monitoring and control applications. Low power consumption is the most important feature that makes battery operated devices operates for a long time. The amount of data throughput (bandwidth) is relatively low compared to wireless LAN for example, but with 250kbps for many applications more than enough. The distance between 2 nodes can be up to 50 meters but be aware the each node can relay data to the next making a very big network, covering significant distances, possible. It is more beneficial due to its features like it has an in-built antenna, 400 ft (120 meters) range, 250kbps maximum data rate. 8 to 10 digital input-output pins etc. [4]. 4.3 MAX232 Microcontroller operates at TTL logic level (0-5 V) level whereas the serial communication in PC operates on RS232 standard (Recommended Standard). RS232 is a standard for serial binary data signals connecting between a DTE (Data Terminal Equipment) and a DCE (Data circuit terminating Equipment). Usually all the digital ICs work on TTL or CMOS voltage levels which cannot use to communicate over RS232 level. So, a voltage or level convertor is needed which can convert TTL to RS232.The most commonly used RS-232 level converter is MAX232. As mentioned earlier, RS232s voltage levels are not compatible with microcontroller so to make it compatible MAX232 is used, which is known as line drivers. It converts the TTL levels to RS232 voltage levels and vice versa. Pin no 13 and 14 of MAX232 (i.e. R1in and T1out respectively) are connected to pin no. 2 and 3 of RS232 and pin no 11 and 12(i.e. T1in and R1out respectively) of MAX232 is connected to pin no 11 and 12 of microcontroller. It requires four capacitors ranging from 1 to 22uF. Most widely used is 22uF. Fig.5 shows interfacing and pin diagram of MAX232level convertor IC.

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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

Figure 5 Interfacing and Pin diagram of MAX232 Advantage of MAX232 is that it uses 5V power supply which is same as for microcontroller. 4.4 LCD An electronic display module which is widely used in portable DVD players, TVs, video scan convertor box, computers, cell phones etc. It is a type of screen which can display the data in alphanumeric form i.e. it can display letters as well as numbers. It has wide range of applications and available in various modules. A 16x2 LCD module is one of the common display module and used in various devices and circuits. These modules are preferred over seven segments and multi segment LEDs due to its features like more economic, easily available and easily programmable. Also it has no limitation of displaying special characters or custom characters unlike seven segments. Though LCDs are very thin but actually it has several layers. Those layers include two polarized panels, with a liquid crystal solution between them. Light is projected through the layers of crystals and is colorized, which produces the visible image. LCDs are also able to display animations. A 16x2 LCD means it can display 16 characters per line and there are two such lines. Here each character has some fix value or space, which is measured in pixel like image. For each character 5x7 pixel matrix is decided by default. This LCD has two registers, namely, Command and Data. The command register stores the command instructions given to the LCD to do a predefined task like initializing it, clearing screen, controlling display etc. Data registers are used to store the data to be displayed on LCD. The data is nothing but the ASCII value of the character to be displayed on LCD.
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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

5. SYSTEM FLOWCHARTS Fig.6 gives the flowcharts for underground and ground sections.

Figure 6 Flowcharts of designed system

6. CONCLUSIONS This paper gives a better solution for a safety system for coalmines with a new wireless specification i.e. Zigbee. Here we are displaying the parameters on LCD at both ground and underground section; it will be helpful to all miners present inside the mine to save their life before an accident. For future help we are storing the parameters in PC. Messages can also be send to all miners when sensor values crossed the threshold level. Zigbee is lifelong device; so it avoids the replacement of system frequently.

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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

REFERENCES 1. S.Vandana, V.B.Sundheep, Development of Coalmine Safety System using Wireless Sensor Network, International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering (IJCSE) Vol. 3 No. 5 May 2011, ISSN : 0975-3397. MO LI and YUNHAO LIU, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Underground Coal Mine Monitoring With Wireless Sensor Networks, ACM Transactions On Sensor Networks, Vol. 5, No. 2, Article 10, Publication Date: March 2009. Tanmoy Maity, Partha Sarathi Das, Mithu Mukherjee, A Wireless Surveillance and Safety System for Mine Workers based on Zigbee, 1st International Conf. on Recent Advances in Information Technology, RAIT-2012. Swathi Bhupatiraju, T J V Subrahmanyeswara Rao, Design and Automation of Security Management System for Industries Based On M2M Technology, International Journal of Computer Engineering Science (IJCES) Volume 2 Issue 3 (March 2012) ISSN : 2250:3439. Sarang D. Patil. and Prof. S.N. Pawar, Wireless Amr System Using Zigbee Technology, International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering &Technology (IJECET), Volume 3, Issue 2, 2012, pp. 107 - 115, ISSN Print: 09766464, ISSN Online: 0976 6472. Ansari Md.Asifmd Riyasat, Vijayshree A More, Prof.J.G.Rana and Dr.S.A.Naveed, Green House Monitoring Based on Zigbee, International Journal of Computer Engineering & Technology (IJCET), Volume 3, Issue 3, 2012, pp. 147 - 154, ISSN Print: 0976 6367, ISSN Online: 0976 6375

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AUTHORS PROFILE
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Miss S.B.Garde, a PG Scholar in M.G.M.s college of Engg. Nanded (MH). The post graduation specialization is Electronics and telecommunication. She graduated from Anuradha college of Engineering, chikhali, Amravati University in the stream of Electronics and telecommunication Engineering. She is working as a lecturer at Pankaj laddhad Institute of technology & management studies, Buldana, Amravati University from last 2 years.

Prof. S.L.Kotgire, PhD(Scholar), Principal at M.G.M.s College of CS & IT, Nanded, Assistant professor, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering, M.G.M.s college of Engineering, Nanded (MH). He has completed graduation & post graduation in the stream of Electronics and telecommunication Engineering and Teaching Experience of 24 years.

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