As part of the agreement, Meglab is incorporating Nanotron's location-awareness technology as a key component of its Imagine platform, which is a modular mine-management system. The web platform can provide real-time visibility of the underground mine environment.

Nanotron's swarm bee modules, in turn, can boost Imagine's functionality by enabling users to track the location and status of mining equipment and workers, as well as any dangerous proximity to other vehicles or machines.

Each miner and piece of equipment being tracked by the Nanotron solution is fitted with a small tag, which emits a wireless chirp signal at pre-set intervals. These signals are detected by other tags, which then forward them using a mesh network.

By monitoring the location of workers, vehicles and machines in real time throughout the mine, Imagine can facilitate smart ventilation automation, face reports, lamp assignment, mine evacuation support, call for assistance and collision awareness.

Meglab president Louis Valade said the company chose nanotron's location-aware IoT technology due to it being light-weight, powerful, long range and autonomous.

"It provides robust radio coverage in harsh mining environments. Nanotron's solutions have proven to be reliable and efficient and can smoothly scale to the needs of any mining application," he added.