Case study
Group Chief Executive Cynthia Carroll and Smart Cap inventor Dr Daniel Bongers launch the new fatigue-monitoring technology Group Chief Executive Cynthia Carroll, along with the Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, the Honourable Stephen Robertson MP, revealed exciting new technology to be introduced at our mines to combat fatigue-related heavy vehicle driving incidents.
The Smart Cap looks just like a standard baseball cap, but it can measure brain-wave information to detect when the wearer is experiencing symptoms of fatigue and report this information back to the user and their supervisor. It will be introduced at our mines in Australia in 2010. Dawson mine will be the pilot site, with 50 caps being produced for the mine’s haul truck operators.
Invented by CRCMining engineer Dr Daniel Bongers, with the technology owned by Anglo American, the Smart Cap is the first application of its kind to apply brain-monitoring technology to address the dangers of driver fatigue when operating heavy vehicles.
The Smart Cap collects fatigue information through microelectronics concealed within the cap and uses an independently validated algorithm to identify when a danger limit is reached. A warning message is sent from the operator’s cap to an in-cab display, notifying them of the threat. The tool has been developed by CRCMining as part of an Australian Coal Association’s Research Programme (ACARP) funded project.