Lately more and more mining accidents have occurred that have left miners trapped in their sub-terrain prisons. Communicating with them is crucial and is often the miner’s first line of survival. As cell phones have become the most common form of communication, it still requires a base station that sits on the ground severely limiting any and all underground communication, and in a miners case cell phones become absolutely useless. There may be hope for them though as Professor Xavier Fernando of Ryerson University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has come up with solution that utilizes radio signals over optical fibers. ROF technology can provide enough bandwidth for cell phone use and is not affected by electromagnetic interferences commonly associated with mining equipment. Since fiber optic communication lines are linear they can ‘scatter’ a signal creating distortion and ultimately result in signal loss. However Professor Fernando has created an algorithm that effectively compensates for the distortion enabling rescuers to find the trapped miners using their cell phone signal. While this is a great idea and is actually being used in the hydroelectric Niagara Tunnel project, why not just use a system such as the US. Navy’s ULF transmission technology they use to talk to submarines?
Eavesdropper