Strix Meshes Coal Mines

CALABASAS, Calif. -- Strix Systems, the leader in high-performance wireless mesh networking, today announced that The Falkirk Mining Company, a subsidiary of The North American Coal Corp., the nation's largest lignite coal producer, has deployed Strix's Access/One(R) Network Outdoor Wireless Systems (OWS) and Access/One(R) Network Edge Wireless System 150 (EWS 150) at its Falkirk surface coal mine in North Dakota. Falkirk Mining's wireless mesh network, which currently covers over 25 square miles and continues to grow, is used for critical logistics data communications to constantly moving coal trucks and bulldozing equipment. Multiple simultaneously active mobile network hotzones roam across the mine at any one time.

Falkirk mines approximately eight million tons of lignite coal annually, using large earthmoving equipment. Giant mobile dragline cranes expose the coal which is then loaded into oversized 200-ton haul trucks that dump the coal into Falkirk's crushing facility.Dozers then re-grade the land for eventual return to area landowners, farmers, and ranchers. The company has installed a wireless network system into nearly every type of equipment used throughout the mining process -- including survey trucks, scrapers, bulldozers, blades, coal trucks, excavators, shovels, pickup laptops, and large draglines -- to help ensure it meets the precise performance in reclamation and high safety standards that make the company a prime example of the modern coal industry.

"We are always moving mining operations to different geographic areas, while continuing to grow our operations," said Darin Jacobson, information systems technician at Falkirk Mining Company. "We are implementing the Strix solution because we needed a wireless mesh network that offered resilient and reliable mobility and high speed, enterprise-class security in an easily-deployed product. Strix's modular design and its advanced, innovative architecture made it the right choice for Falkirk, especially since Strix can cover large areas with only a few nodes."

Strix Systems Inc.