Leti, a research institute of the CEA, and Davey Bickford, a developer of blasting solutions, have demonstrated a new wireless system that offers increased safety, flexibility and productivity gains to the blasting market.
The new system, developed in the frame of the Technological Research Institute IRT Nanoelec, consists of 
electronic detonators with bi-directional radio modules placed on the surface of a mining pit. This wireless network communicates with a digital blasting system located a few kilometers away from the blasting zone and is controlled by a wireless communication protocol specifically developed and optimized to ensure safe, reliable and synchronized operation of hundreds of detonating elements in open pit mines.
A key innovation of the new blasting solution is the wireless activation of the detonators. Each detonator can be powered up, programmed and reconfigured by means of an easy-to-use remote programming unit that operates through a safe and dedicated optical link. The reliable and secure wireless solution for the actuation of hundreds of electronic detonators was tested successfully in an open-pit mine.
“By replacing wired communications with an innovative wireless link, this new system helps bring large-scale mining into the digital era, and increases safety, efficiency and productivity for mine operators,” said Hughes Metras, director of IRT Nanoelec, a consortium focused on R&D in the field of semiconductor devices and ICT technologies.
This joint R&D project is part of IRT Nanoelec’s PULSE program, in which connectivity between objects is studied by CEA-Leti’s teams. The program enables access to CEA-Leti channel-sounding tools and radio frequency system characterization.
