Broadband  |  2023-03-28

Debswana and Huawei Unveil World's First 5G-Oriented Smart Diamond Mine Project

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

5G features like high bandwidth and low latency can support the application of cutting-edge technologies like autonomous driving, enabling more intelligent digital transformation of the mining industry in the future.

Recently, at MWC Barcelona 2023, Botswana's Debswana and Huawei together announced the world's first 5G-oriented smart diamond mine project.

Debswana's Head of Information Management, Molemisi Nelson Sechaba, said that the Huawei-enabled smart mine solution has been deployed at Debswana's Jwaneng opencast diamond mine, and the project started operation in December 2021.

Huawei's 4G eLTE private network solution provides stable connectivity for the Jwaneng mine, connecting more than 260 pieces of equipment, including drilling rigs, excavators, heavy trucks, and pickup trucks. This enables interconnection between the mine's production, safety and security systems.

Before this solution was adopted, the previous solution has two limitations. First, it has limited coverage. Second, it uses public wireless frequencies and has less robust anti-interference capabilities. As a result, the mine's different types of data could not be transferred stably in real time.

Sechaba said that it is important to deploy the eLTE solution to connect mining equipment more stably. There are two reasons for this. The first is efficiency. The ability to transfer data in real time makes equipment like mining vehicles more efficient, increasing yield and reducing long-term OPEX. Second, the solution helped improve safety. Real-time data collection, backhaul, and interaction make the system more sensitive and accurate to provide more reliable protection for staff and vehicles.

The Jwaneng mine is the world's first 5G-oriented smart diamond mine. This means the hardware equipment such as base stations used in the mine's digital transformation solution support network upgrades to 5G. 5G features like high bandwidth and low latency can support the application of cutting-edge technologies like autonomous driving, enabling more intelligent digital transformation of the mining industry in the future.