perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

["Patrick Grahvendy" <>]

Greetings perfsonar folk

I’m responsible for a remote control system for heavy earth moving equipment
in an underground mining environment.

The system consists of:

1.      Windows PC on the surface as the main control unit
2.      4 remote control stations – 1 on the surface, 3 underground
3.      Numerous access barrier boxes – controlling laser barrier safety
systems
4.      Numerous Wifi access points – to connect the loaders to the network
5.      4 underground earth moving front end loaders – equipped with Wifi
machine clients

Interconnections between all the fixed hardware consist of fibre optic lines
to various network switches placed at different levels underground. From those
network switches we use M12 shielded ethernet cabling to further unmanaged
ethernet switches and the end devices.

1,2,3 and 5 above all contain a PLC unit which interfaces DC control signals
to IP data. If connection is lost between any of these devices the system goes
into an immediate fail safe and shuts the machine in operation down.

The issue I’m having is lost packet data intermittently causing this shutdown
condition.

Running various continuous pings from the surface control PC to different IP
address locations underground I can determine roughly where the unreliable
connections are.

Can perfsonar be configured to run continuously, say over several hours, and
provide more specific feedback on where the system is losing integrity?

Any feedback or insight gratefully appreciated.


Regards,

Patrick Grahvendy
AutoMine Specialist