Real-Time Slope Monitoring in Opencast Coal Mines Using Wireless Sensor Network and Cloud-Based System

Coal is the primary source of energy for the production of electricity as well as other industrial purposes. Despite being one of the largest coal producers in the world, India still imports coal to meet domestic demand. Coal is mainly extracted from opencast mines with high mechanization and deeper depths to meet the required coal demand. However, there are many problems with deeper opencast projects, like slope stability and its failure, which can be caused by slope geometry and rock properties.,Monitoring of slopes using wireless sensor networks (WSN), Internet of Things (IoT), and Cloud Computing Technique (CCT) is a quick and accurate system that minimises monitoring costs and improves safety. A reliable and robust system has been developed for slope monitoring, and field testing has been carried out in an opencast coal mine.,This study initially described moisture, slope displacement and vibration measurements on slopes of an opencast coal mine. The second step involves a LoRa-based communication system that transmits data from the installed sensors in the field to ThingSpeak, where management receives an alert message through the PythonAnywhere platform regarding the behaviour of moisture content, movements, and vibrations in the slopes. In addition, the existing slope monitoring method using a Total Station (TS) was used to collect measurement data from the investigated slope. Further, a numerical modelling analysis for the slope area under specific site conditions was carried out.