Wireless Sensor Networks: An Emerging Solution for Underground Mines

1. Introduction

In past one decade, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have motivated and attracted researchers worldwide not only for the emerging application possibilities, but also due to the unique characteristics of WSN. WSNs are resource constrained platforms having the small form factor of size, memory, power and processing capabilities (Yick et al., 2008). The major application areas of WSNs includes environmental monitoring, disaster relief operation, military application, health monitoring, seismic sensing and hazardous area monitoring (Castillo-Effer et al., 2004; Lorincz et al., 2004; Simon et al., 2004; Yick et al., 2005; Gao et al., 2006; Werner-Allen et al., 2006; Sydänheimo et al., 2000).