A Novel Cognitive Opportunistic Communication Framework for Coal Mines

The dynamic advancement and harsh environment of coal mines often result in intermittent or regional wireless connection between sending nodes and receiving nodes and then lead to the decrease of transmission success ratio and even failure. To solve this problem, the environmental cognition and best-effort transmission are both demanded. Here we proposed a novel communication framework for coal mines based on a cognitive opportunistic concept to address the wireless network communication problems in coal mines, which consists of the node mobility model in coal mines, cooperative cognition of the time-varying communication environment, and the opportunistic routing of intermittent or regional connection scenarios. To realize this framework, real time neighbor discovering mechanisms and mobility perceiving strategies, called environment cognition, must be deeply investigated to predict the trends of node movement. The obtained results of environment cognition are then used to analyze current channel characteristics in order to determine and set optimum communication system parameters and reduce the probability of intermittent or regional connection. To address those unavoidable situations of the intermittent or regional connection, the opportunistic routing mechanism is brought forward to provide relatively stable data transmission. Finally, as an example of cognitive opportunistic mine communication of this framework, personnel evacuation under an emergency is discussed.