The mining industry in Canada has evolved over the years and continues to do so with an emphasis on health and safety.
Keeping that in mind, a tech company in Sudbury has recently developed what it’s calling a smart helmet, that features more than just your traditional headlamp.
Rey Boucher, the Vice President of Jannatec Industries, says these helmets are different, they come with cameras and phone capabilities.
In addition to the new doodads and whatnots on the helmets, the company also developed a way to enable contact tracing for miners during COVID-19.
They used an existing technology called ranging, which was already used in their helmets, which was initially created to track the distance between miners.
Information can be extracted and sent to a database offering information after someone has been diagnosed.
Lights around the bottom of the helmets, Boucher explained, turn on as soon as two workers are within a certain distance, to alert the workers that they are too close to each other.
Helmets start at $99 but become more expensive as you add on various capabilities. Right now, the company has its first 500 smart helmets in production, which are being made for a mining company on the east coast.
