The Background
Endeavour Mining owns and operates gold mines in Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Senegal in West Africa and is headquartered in London, UK. The company acquired the Ity gold mine in Côte d'Ivoire in 2015, later increasing its stake to 85% in 2018 when the CIL (Carbon-in-Leach) gold extraction plant was built. The Ity mine is located in the far west of Côte d’Ivoire, near the border with Liberia. It has approximately 940 employees.
The Challenge
Provide radio coverage across the whole mining site Public mobile network signals in the Ity mine region are poor and some areas barely have any signal coverage at all. This lack of reliable communications infrastructure severely hampered the operational efficiency of the mine,
as the on-site command and dispatch center could not function properly without a dedicated communication system. These communication issues only got worse as the mine expanded out over a much-increased area, causing further difficulties for on-site communications.
The Solution
Endeavour Mining decided to invest in a dedicated Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) system. It chose to implement a Hytera DMR XPT (Extended Pseudo Trunking) system based on Hytera RD98XS DMR repeaters.
XPT is a multi-site digital trunking solution, which combines the advantages of DMR Tier II conventional systems and the properties of advanced DMR Tier III trunked radio systems to increase network capacity at a much-reduced cost.
Hytera HM78X mobile DMR radios and HP68X handheld DMR radios were assigned to vehicles and staff respectively.
The DMR XPT system was deployed across the whole mine to provide basic network coverage. As it was difficult to direct coverage into the mine pits, Hytera RD98XS DMR repeaters were mounted onto vehicles to provide mobile coverage and enhance main network coverage wherever and whenever required.
The repeaters are charged up using solar power, which is in plentiful supply in West Africa. A network bridge is used to connect the mobile repeaters to the xed site main network repeaters to ensure seamless connectivity and handovers.
Finally, a Hytera SmartOne unified communication platform was installed to provide powerful dispatching functions, including voice calls, GPS positioning services, messaging functions, and voice recording for dispatch and command of the mine operations.
The Benefits
XPT DMR System
The Hytera XPT solution does not use any control channels, so all radio channels are available for communication. Unlike purely conventional systems, the radio user no longer needs to select a channel manually; instead, free channels are automatically allocated for call requests and assigned dynamically, as in a trunked radio system. XPT, therefore, provides a very cost-effective way to
boost capacity and gain additional features without having to invest in a full-blown DMR Tier III system.
Mobile Coverage
The vehicle-mounted, mobile RD98XS repeaters enable teams to stay connected wherever they go around the mining site, providing flexible signal coverage where it is needed.
Ruggedized Equipment
Hytera ruggedized infrastructure equipment and radio terminals are specifically designed to work well even in the harsh environment of a mine and to be able to cope with the high temperatures experienced in Côte d'Ivoire. For example, the HP68X handheld radios are IP67 rated against dust and moisture ingress and are able to withstand a two-meter drop, as well as meet other MIL-STD-810 G standards.
Superior Audio
The radios use cutting-edge AI-based noise-cancellation technology to decrease unwanted background noise and reduce howling, thereby ensuring high audio clarity, which is extremely important when users are operating in a noisy mining environment.