DragonFly Smart Lighting

IOT Automation exists in the underground mining sphere. With the advent of tunnelling projects here and abroad, we were desirous to develop and design a solution suited to the tunneling environment. We canvassed the industry, though we didn't have a product, our story garnished serious interest. With the potential of several large projects possibly about to land - we had to start. With only a very simple direct CNC half concocted sample, we won a project without a product. The challenge was to design, prove, manufacture, finance and deliver (to a price) in under 6 months - it took us 9 months.

IOT Automation have had many years in devising, designing and implementing communication and lighting product for harsh underground environments. The DragonFly product is a culmination of that experience highly focused on the goal where (because of restricted time) trial and error really wasn't available. It was a matter of embracing the standards the product would have to comply with and implement from experience and all design disciplines would have to occur concurrently. Our single biggest roadblock was that the design commenced in the aftermath of COVID where supply chains had been decimated so design was cognoscente of limited availability.

Typically, in tunnel construction environments, lighting and communications are separate packages. The lighting is electrically based and can consist of several disparate and separately controlled systems if it is to achieve general, auxiliary and emergency lighting. It is very manual - time consuming thus expensive to install. Communications is then a separate system requiring a different discipline, and its equipment installed in the same area and again, manual in nature thus time consuming and expensive. The DragonFly Smart Lighting System provides all the lighting aspects and communications within a single system that installs very quickly with a minimum of labour.

With a system load design of 2,000W per circuit, these serially connected lighting modules can safely and reliably span 250 metres @ 5 metre spacings or 500 metres @ 20 metre spacings achieving a 1klm range with a single controller unit maximizing the distance before reinjecting primary power. The DragonFly Light • High efficiency LED panels outputting 4200 Lumens of 5K diffused and task focused natural white light. • RGB, Amber and white indicator panels for evacuation guidance and area status. • Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled for communications, tracking and OTA communication with other IOT devices. • Emergency backup of up to 2 hours using the increased safety of a LFP Battery. • Indexed tilt mechanism • 5mm walled GF Nylon base and polycarbonate Lens for considerate strength. • Unique use of brass to sink and convect heat away from the unit & safe to touch. The DragonFly Cabling. Achieves the "Plug and Play" nature and "live", yet safe, installation of the system. • Custom composite cable comprising: high current power cord, a separate "Cat5" data cable then overmoulded with a durable outer sheath acting as an electrical hose to achieve the "hardening and double insulation" required for construction environments. • Utterly unique custom connectors/ connections C/- robust latching and sealing mechanisms.