SMART HELMET FOR COAL MINERS

by

Hassan Ilyas
BEE173053
Mohammad Nasir Ali
BEE173067
Abraash Bin Tahir
BEE173060

A Project Report submitted to the

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
BACHELORS OF SCIENCE IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

Faculty of Engineering
Capital University of Science & Technology,
Islamabad
February, 2021

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 Copyright @ 2021 by CUST Student

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form requires the prior
written permission of Hassan Ilyas, Muhammad Nasir Ali, Abraash Bin Tahir or
designated representative.

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 DECLARATION
It is declared that this is an original piece of my own work, except where otherwise
acknowledged in text and references. This work has not been submitted in any form
for another degree or diploma at any university or other institution for tertiary
education and shall not be submitted by me in future for obtaining any degree from
this or any other University or Institution.

Hassan Ilyas
BEE173053

Mohammad Nasir Ali

BEE173067

Abraash Bin Tahir

BEE173060

February, 2021

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
It is certified that the project titled “Smart Helmet for Coal Miners using Zigbee”
carried out by Hassan Ilyas, Reg. No. BEE173053, Mohammad Nasir Ali Reg. No.
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BEE173067, Abraash Bin Tahir Reg. No. BEE173060, under the supervision of Dr.
Noor Muhammad Khan, Capital University of Science & Technology, Islamabad, is
fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a final year project for the degree of BS
Electrical Engineering.

Supervisor: --------------------------------------
Engr. Muhammad Waleed Farooq
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
Capital University of Science & Technology, Islamabad

HOD: --------------------------------------
Dr. Noor Mohammad Khan
Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
Capital University of Science & Technology, Islamabad

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to pay my gratitude to my supervisor Engr. Muhammad Waleed Farooq
who helped us and guided in every aspect of the project even he provided us the main
information through which the communication algorithm was designed. While writing
the report Engr. Muhammad Waleed Farooq guided me with the problems which I
was going to face. So, I would like to thank our project supervisor, Engr. Muhammad
Waleed Farooq, whose contribution in stimulating suggestions and encouragement,
helped me to coordinate my project especially in writing this report.

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 ABSTRACT
The aim of the project is to design a wireless helmet for coal miners using Zigbee
wireless technology. Every year miners lose their lives because they don’t have proper
equipment’s to counter the worst mine conditions. In previous two years 164 miners
lost their lives in Baluchistan and 300 got injured. The initiative of the project is to save
human lives. This project has qualities like it detects the gases that are dangerous for
human health, it will also measure the humidity in the mine and the persons oxygen
level to ensure that he is not inhaling the dangerous gases in excess. This helmet will
have a dust mask for safety purpose. In case of harmful condition, the buzzer on the
helmet will generate alarm to alert the miners and wireless Zig-Bee will also transmit
all the data to base station for quick response. The system will compose of powerful
primarily Zig-Bee based wireless mine supervising system. The application follows
ZigBee Wi-Fi technology to build wireless sensor networks, which will provide real-
time surveillance with early-warning intelligence system on temperature, leakage of gas
in mining place, health condition of miners and alerting the control station. The gadget
is used to lessen capacity safety issues in coal production so backup security can move
in mines for safety of human lives.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

vii
LIST OF FIGURES

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LIST OF TABLES

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 LIST OF ACRONYMS/ABBREVIATIONS

WMN Wireless mesh network

WLAN Wireless Local Area Network

Zig-Bee Zonal Intercommunication Global-standard

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION
In the start of mining era helmets with normal LED light were used in the small and
medium mines because of their light weight and low power consumption, but 0%
safety was assured, with the introduction of Zigbee wireless technology it is preferred
the most because of its ability to develop wireless networks and transmit and receive
collected data wirelessly, so potential security issues can be tackled. Xbee radios from
DIGI International are used for creating wireless network to collect data from mines
and transfer to the base station.

1.1 Overview
To overcome the mine safety issues wireless helmet for coal miners using Zigbee
wireless technology is proposed. The initiative of the project is to save human lives.
This project has qualities like it detects the gases that are dangerous for human health,
it will also measure the humidity in the mine and the persons oxygen level to ensure
that he is not inhaling the dangerous gases in excess. This helmet will have a dust
mask for safety purpose. In case of harmful condition, the buzzer on the helmet will
generate alarm to alert the miners and wireless Zig-Bee will also transmit all the data
to base station for quick response. The system will compose of powerful primarily
ZigBee based wireless mine supervising system. The application follows ZigBee Wi-
Fi technology to build wireless sensor networks, which will provide real-time
surveillance with early-warning intelligence system on temperature, leakage of gas in
mining place, health condition of mine and alerting the control station. The gadget is
used to lessen capacity safety issues in coal production so backup security can move
in mines for safety of human lives.

1.2 Project Idea

Our proposed design will dramatically increase the life expectancy of the coal miners
by way of alerting them about the dangers. In our system, the helmet is having the
circuit with 3 sensors i.e., Temperature, humidity and gasoline to tackle the situations
in coal mine.

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1.3 Purpose of the Project

Every year miners lose their lives because they don’t have proper equipment’s to
counter the worst mine conditions. In previous two years 164 miners lost their lives in
Baluchistan and 300 got injured. In case of any hazardous situation inside the mine
the helmet gives the facts to the control station through the zigbee transmitter and the
manipulate station will alert the coal miner using the zigbee receiver by way of
making the buzzer active that's located within the helmet so that a miner can have a
threat to rescue his existence from the risks came about in coal mines.

1.4 Project Specifications

Arduino For collecting information from

sensors.

Sensors (Temperature, Methane, For collecting data from

environment.
Humidity)

Zigbee One for sending data collected by

Arduino from sensors and second for
receiving.

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 1.5 Applications of the Project
 Useful for the persons working underground.

 Suitable to tackle any climate condition inside of mine.

 Valid for distant communication almost 30 feet

 Efficiently transmit and receive information.

1.6 Project Plan

Earlier similar projects are checked beforehand. As this project has already been
implemented in many forms in the past, literature review is very helpful and took a
week. Due to the pandemic constraints, working on software implementation, coding
and report.

1.6.1 Project Milestones

Give distribution of tasks, task duration and resource person details for part I and II
separately

Table 1.1 Proposed Project Plan

S# Tasks Duration Resource Person

1 Literature Review 02 Weeks Nasir, Hassan
2 Algorithm 02 Weeks Abraash, Hassan
3 Simulation 04 Weeks Nasir, Abraash, Hassan

4 Sensor Installation 01 Week Nasir, Abraash

5 Arduino coding 02 Weeks Nasir, Abraash, Hassan

6 Zigbee interfacing 1 week Hassan,Abraash

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 1.7 Report Organization
The report is organized as:
 Chapter 1 is the overview.
 Chapter 2 covers previous projects and previous similar ideas.
 The third chapter discusses the software implementation.
 Fourth chapter has all the information relating to the tools used.
 The second last chapter discusses the results and evaluates them.
 Conclusions and possible recommendations are discussed at the last.

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW
This task was picked and built after completely concentrating the ideas to develop the
required project and to achieve the required results. Analysis of this exploration is
talked about quickly beneath.

2.1 Background Theory

Zig-Bee is designed for remote automation and other lower data tasks, such as smart
home automation, remote monitoring and distant observing. Zig-Bee is a wireless
communication device which consumes low power and minimum effort. Zig-Bee is
suitable for commercial and domestic applications. It can provide an opportunity to
enhance the routing in communication.

Zig-bee is basically used for two course correspondence between a sensor and a
control structure. It is a wireless communication device which can communicate the

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signal up to 100 meters. Like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, it is a short range communication
device. On the other side, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are high data rate rules which maintain
the trading of media reports, programming, and so on.

2.2 Related Technologies

There are many technologies that use different ISM band frequencies. Some of them
are highlighted below.

2.2.1 Mesh
Wireless mesh network is a communication
network which is made up of radio nodes that
are organized in a mesh topology.
Basically mesh topology is a network setup where each device is interconnected with
one another. It is topology which is mostly used for wireless networks.

2.1.2 WLAN
A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless network that links two or more using wireless
communication to communicate within a limited area such as at home, school,
laboratory and office. It also provides an opportunity for the users who are connected
that they can move around within the area and remain connected. Wireless LANs are
becoming popular now days in commercial properties because they offer wireless
access to their customers and employees.

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2.1.3 Node MCU:

Node MCU is basically a low cost open-source platform. It is based on a computer

code which is developed for the ESP8266 local area network chip. Some of the
advantages of Node MCU are as follow:
 It is low-cost Wi-Fi chip.
 Low consumption of energy.
 It reduces board size.

2.3 Related Projects

There are many projects which are based on Zig-Bee technology. Some of them are
mentioned below:

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2.3.1 Home Security System using Zig-Bee Wirelessly

Zig-Bee basically uses two circuits like a transmitter and a collector. The transmitter
can be worked with three PIR sensors to show the development in different regions, a
region sensor is used to see the window whether that is closed or opened and a
temperature sensor is used to get the current temperature.
The recipient circuit can be worked with a Zig-Bee, GSM, and LCD where the ZigBee
gives less inaction correspondence. The correspondence between the transmitter and
recipient should be possible with the help of a Zig-Bee Module. At whatever point
any development is recognized by the PIR sensor, a notification can be sent to the
person.

2.3.2 Zig-Bee based Défense Robot

These robots are arranged with a consolidated system that joins sensors, weapons,
video screens, cameras, and gripper. These robots are available in different shapes. So
here a robot is designed with the Zig-Bee association for the obscure people.

This robot can be obliged by Zig-Bee and PC to find the weapons similarly as
adversaries. It sends the information to the control live with the objective that basic
move can be made by the PC customer. This robot recognizes gas, temperature, and
fire in the environment. This robot gets the weapons with the help of an arm. By using
Zig-Bee correspondence, obstructions in faraway spots can be controlled

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2.3.3 Smart helmet for Advanced Factory Environment

 Ensure Safety in Factory.

 Sensors will detect injuries, harmful gases and hazardous situation in factory.
 Transmit sensors information wireless to control room.
 In case of any emergency situation buzzer will generate alarm.
 Easy to carry.
 Light weighted and economical.

2.4 Limitations and Bottlenecks of the Existing Work

Some of the limitations are as follow:

1 Zig-Bee disadvantages mainly include short range.

2 It has low complexity and data speed.
3 Zig-Bee is not secure like Wi-Fi based secured system.

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2.5 Summary
This chapter discusses the projects and technologies related to this project. It also
explains limitations of all these methods and a problem statement to overcome these
limitations.

Chapter 3

PROJECT DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

In order to get desired results out of our project so that it delivers all the
specifications it offers, first of all research work has done and we came to know how
to implement our project and which components are required to design our project
and software used for the implementation of our project.

1.1 Proposed Design Methodology

This is the block diagram of our project showing a microcontroller, ZigBee for
wireless data transmission a temperature, humidity, methane sensor.

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 Figure 3.1: Block diagram of hardware design

1.2 Analysis Procedure

In our project Arduino is used along with Zigbee and to transmit data collected from
the sensors and transmit it wirelessly too other Zigbee and to the base station. This
work can also be done using Node MCU but it difficult to handle in respect of
programing and bit expensive as compare to ZigBee. So that’s why Zigbee is
preferred in our project to wirelessly transmit data.

1.3 Design of the Project Hardware

In our project Arduino is used to collect data from the sensors like temperature,
humidity and methane. Sensors are supplied with 5v and ground is attached through
Arduino. After it collect the data from sensors the data is transferred to the Zigbee by
connecting RX pin of Arduino to the TX pin of Zigbee and TX pin of Arduino to the
RX pin of ZigBee. The receiver side consist of Arduino and Zigbee connected to
each other as sending side Zigbee is connected to Arduino. It receives anything that
is transmitted wirelessly.

1.4 Design of the Project software/algorithm

In order to make the hardware run properly Arduino is programmed according to

sensors attached and the Zigbee is programmed using XCTU software in order to
send and receive data wirelessly ZigBee’s have to program and certain perimeters
need to be set.
 Open XCTU software
 Connect the Zigbee
with the laptop which
need to be programmed.

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After we discover Figure 1:XCTU COM port selection window the attached
devices the we have to follow the procedure mention below. For a Zigbee to
communicate wirelessly coordinator and receiver ZigBee’s have PAN ID has be the
same for coordinator JV option needs to be enabled.

Figure 2:XCTU configuration tab

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1.5 Details of Simulations:
For simulation purpose PROTEUS software is used, different tools of proteus is used
to create the simulation so that hardware implementation of the project can
accelerate. Arduino is also used in our project as we have to program the Arduino
according to the sensors attached and have to write the code for the sensors to work
properly and hex file of code has to be used in Arduino to run the simulation
properly. First of all, we have placed the Arduino at the work place of PROTEUS we
attached the DHT11 that is temperature and humidity sensor, a virtual terminal and
Zigbee is attached on other side receiver setup is arranged and we get our desired
results

1.6 Simulation Results

This is the simulation of our project which we have implemented in FYP part 1.

OUTPUT
After constructing the desired circuit this is the output, we get which shows the real
time temperature and humidity of the surroundings, and can easily detects any
change in the temperature and humidity.

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1.7 Summary
In this chapter a detailed description of project design and implementation procedure
is described how software simulation is implemented and how Hardware is attached
which software’s are used for the simulation and the programing of ZigBee’s.

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Chapter 4

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

In or project the hardware tools that are used consist of Arduino ,ZigBee, and sensors
that consist of Humidity ,methane and temperature sensors.
2.1 Hardware Tools
Arduino:
Arduino is a general-purpose microcontroller development board based AVR
microcontroller atmega328p shown in figure below

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Arduino Uno has built-in ADC which is very useful for our project. The reason is this
because we have to sense the voltage and current of load, which is leveled down as
actual reading are 0-250 ac voltage and current of several amperes, the reading of this
caliber cannot be directly feed to Arduino ADC but they have to be in a range of 0-5v
range, means both voltage and current must be represented in terms of this voltage
scale This Arduino development board also provide us with regulated 5v and 3.3v
power supplies which helped us greatly to power up Xbee radios which work on 3.3v
and LCD module which worked on 5v.

Zigbee Series 2

Zigbee is the radio module from DIGI international that is mainly used for creating
networks. Through this module we create local network that will transfer data from
each house to the central data collection point to be ready to transmit to grid station
through GSM module.

The specifications of Zigbee radio are shown in tables below:

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DHT11

It measures both moisture and air temperature. It represent humidity in percent’s as

compare to the ratio of actual moisture and the moisture air that temperature can hold
The warmer the air is, the more moisture it can hold, so relative humidity changes
with fluctuations in temperature

2.2 Softwares and Simulation Tools

For simulation purpose PROTEUS is used. It is easy to handle tool for simulation.
Each component is easily available and handling is easy too.

ARDUINO:

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ZIGBEE:

DHT11:

VIRTUAL TERMINAL:

2.3 Summary
Summary of the chapter.

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Chapter 5

PROJECT RESULTS AND EVALUATION

After performing all the desired research, simulation and hardware interfacing the
desired results are achieved and is display in this chapter along with brief
explanation.
5.1 Presentation of the findings
Performing the simulation on the software and implementing it on the hardware and
interfacing the sensors and Zigbee our results are achieved. Data is wirelessly
transmitted and received and displayed on the screen.

5.1.1 Hardware Results

Figure 3: Sending Side

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This is the sending side of our project it consists of temperature and humidity sensor
that is connected to our microcontroller which is Arduino, it collects data from
sensors and send to the Zigbee which can wirelessly transmit the data to other Zigbee
having same PAN ID.

Figure 4:Receiving side

This is the receiving side of our project it consists of a microcontroller Arduino and
Zigbee this Zigbee is interlinked with the Zigbee at the sending side which can be
done using the software XCTU.This part collect the data that is wirelessly send from
the transmitting side and display it on the screen.

5.1.2 Software Results

Figure 5:Software Simulation

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This is the simulation that is implemented on PROTEUS before the components
should place physically. It consists of Arduino, virtual terminal to see the results an
temperature and humidity sensor and Zigbee’s to transmit and receive data.

This is the output that is achieved from the software simulation using virtual terminal
that shows the real time temperature and humidity.

Table 5.1: Software Testing Results

Condition Testing
s
Sensor 1 Temperature sensor is attached to the Arduino on the proteus software and
tested weather it works properly or not.

Sensor 2 Humidity sensor is also attached and tested to insure the progress of project

Zigbee Finally, Zigbee is also tested on software to check weather it works properly
and transmit and receive data.

LCD Test We first tested the LCD by printing the “Hello Word” on it by programming at
Arduino software latter sensors were attached to see the proper results

5.2 Summary
This chapter focuses on the hardware and software results of the project. It describes
in detail about the software simulation how it is performed and show the results and
describes about the interfacing of hardware components and achieving the desired
results.

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Chapter 6

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

Our project will ensure the safety of coal miners as Zigbee can wirelessly transmit
and receive data with base station. In case of emergency situation sensors will
transmit data to the Arduino and Zigbee will carry the data wireless so that rescue
team can provide first aid and can save miner lives. Our project is suitable for all
mines condition because features we offer can tackle all harmful mine condition as
compared to the helmets used before. Project will focus on node-node
communication which is suitable in case of emergency because data is transferred in
between nodes and the base station and all helmets are interlinked so that
information is transmitted to each helmet and this communication increases the
safety factor as compare to centralized node scheme.

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