University student innovators in Siberia’s coal-rich Kemerovo region have developed a technology to monitor boring equipment in coal mines using iPhones or other smartphones, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports, citing a source in the Kemerovo regional administration.
Yevgeny Mametyev and Konstantin Ponomarev, the developers, are said to have presented their innovative device to an audience at Kuzbass State Technical University (KuzSTU), where they are students.
The system consists of miniature gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetic detectors, an electronic compass, and other components that can enable a smartphone to be highly sensitive to any movement or change in its spatial arrangement.
When the position of the sensors changes, a computer displays the changes in data on the phone’s display, which enables uninterruptible monitoring of the boring machines’ components.
A series of tests of the new system is slated for this summer on an actual horizontal drilling machine. Smart Mechanics, a local company which provides diagnostics of engineering equipment for the Kemerovo region’s coal mines, is reported to have “expressed interest in the new project.”
