🔒 Coal Mine Safety Monitoring System: A Smart Step Towards Safer Mines

“Safety doesn’t happen by accident.” — This was the foundational thought that drove our second-year engineering project.

Mining remains one of the most hazardous industrial activities, with accidents often stemming from undetected environmental threats such as gas leaks, temperature spikes, or inadequate oxygen levels. Our team developed a Coal Mine Safety Monitoring System using IoT and embedded systems to provide early warnings and ensure real-time monitoring.

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📌 Project Overview

🎓 Academic Year: 2022–2023
🏫 Institute: MIT Academy of Engineering, Alandi (D), Pune
👨‍🔧 Team Members: Second-Year B.Tech Mechanical Engineering students
🔍 Guide: Prof. [Insert Guide Name if applicable]

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💡 Motivation

Coal miners often face life-threatening conditions. We wanted to create an affordable and scalable system that could continuously monitor parameters like:

• Methane (CH₄) levels (which are explosive at 5–15% concentration)

• Carbon Monoxide (CO) levels (highly toxic)

• Temperature

• Humidity

• Oxygen (O₂) concentration

Through this project, we hoped to bridge the gap between traditional safety inspections and modern, real-time data monitoring.

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🛠️ System Design

📷 System Block Diagram

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🧩 Components Used

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🖥️ Working Principle

• The Arduino Uno continuously receives analog data from the gas and environmental sensors.

• The values are processed in real-time and shown on an LCD display.

• If the values exceed safety thresholds (e.g., high CH₄ or low O₂), a buzzer activates to alert the workers.

• Optionally, data can be sent to a central server or dashboard via the ESP8266 module.

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🔍 Key Features

✅ Real-time environmental data
✅ Instant alerts on dangerous conditions
✅ Compact and portable design
✅ Low cost and scalable
✅ Scope for integration with cloud dashboards

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📊 Results & Testing

We simulated underground mine conditions using gas emitters and heaters. The system responded instantly to changes:

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📈 Future Scope

• Add Bluetooth/LoRa modules for long-range data transmission

• Integrate cloud-based dashboards with real-time visualization

• Include GPS for miner tracking

• Add SMS or mobile app notifications for alerts

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🧠 Learnings & Takeaways

Through this project, we gained insights into:

• Sensor calibration and interfacing

• Arduino programming

• Embedded system design

• Real-time safety applications

• Team collaboration and technical documentation

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📸 Gallery

👨‍🔬 Project Setup

🔌 Wiring and Sensor Integration

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🙌 Acknowledgments

Special thanks to our faculty and lab coordinators at MITAOE, who supported and encouraged us throughout the journey. This project truly helped us understand how engineering can save lives.

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🗣️ Let’s Talk Safety Tech

Have feedback or ideas on how to improve such systems? Drop a comment below or connect with me on Hashnode/Twitter/LinkedIn.

“Every miner deserves a safe return home.”

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