Miner’s Safety Bot: An ESP32-Based Autonomous Mobile Mine Safety Monitoring System

Mining operations are important to industrial growth, but they expose the mining workers to risk including hazardous gases, elevated ambient temperatures, and dynamic structural instabilities within underground environments. Safety systems in the past, typically based on fixed sensor networks or manual patrols, fall short in accurate hazard detection amidst shifting mine conditions. The proposed project Miner's Safety Bot advanced this paradigm by leveraging an ESP 32 microcontroller as a mobile platform that integrates gas sensing, thermal monitoring, visual inspection and autonomous obstacle avoidance. The system incorporates MQ7 semiconductor gas sensor to monitor real time carbon monoxide (CO), offering detection range from 5 to 2000 ppm with accuracy of 5 ppm. Temperature and humidity are monitored through DHT11 digital sensor, calibrated to ensure reliability across the harsh microclimates in mines. Navigation and autonomous movement are enabled by Ultrasonic Sensor (HC-SR04) with 3 mm accuracy level for obstacle detection, that is integrated into mobile chassis which is driven by L298N dual H-bridge motor drivers. The bot's orientation and sensor field of view are controlled by a servo motor. For visual inspection, ESP32-CAM module streams real time visuals from mine. Wireless data transmission uses the ESP32's inbuilt Wi-Fi to link sensor outputs to the Blynk IoT platform, that enables to monitor data remotely.