Road tunnels, metro lines, utility galleries and cable tunnels are confined, high‑risk spaces where visibility is limited and conditions change daily. GridRTLS combines tunnel‑grade UWB positioning with GPS outdoors to give operators live visibility of workers, vehicles and assets along the entire underground alignment.
Tunnel and underground projects involve long, narrow spaces with poor natural lighting, constrained escape routes and heavy construction equipment. Crews, vehicles and materials move through headings, cross passages, shafts, staging caverns and portal areas under tight programme and safety constraints. Line‑of‑sight is often obscured by curves and slopes, radio propagation is difficult, and traditional methods — tag boards, radios, paper checklists and CCTV at a few locations — struggle to provide continuous situational awareness.
GridRTLS deploys rugged UWB anchors designed specifically for tunnels and underground spaces. Single tunnel anchors can cover up to hundreds of metres along the tunnel with sub‑meter accuracy, and dual‑channel devices support long‑reach coverage with typical indoor accuracy better than 30 cm in line‑of‑sight segments.
Battery‑powered “wire‑free” UWB beacons allow rapid expansion of coverage without cabling, with multi‑year battery life at 1 Hz reporting — ideal for temporary headings and advancing faces.
Wearable tags (badges, wristbands, smart helmets) and vehicle‑mounted devices provide real‑time positions for workers and machines underground, while GPS / RTK receivers extend tracking on the surface for portals, staging areas and spoil transport. For long, linear assets such as single‑bore tunnels and galleries, the system can operate in 1D “along‑tunnel” mode to reduce anchor count while still giving accurate per‑crew location.
On top of the positioning layer, GridRTLS enables geofences around blast zones and unsupported areas, man‑down and SOS alerts, evacuation and refuge monitoring, and optional structural‑movement monitoring with mm‑level GPS/RTK sensors on slopes, portals and surface structures.
Combined length of road, rail, cable and utility tunnels instrumented with RTLS.
Workers, supervisors and contractors active in headings, galleries and shafts.
Trucks, loaders, road‑headers, shotcrete rigs, utility vehicles and mobile plant.
UWB positioning accuracy in line‑of‑sight tunnel segments for people and vehicle tracking.
Curved tunnels, dust and low lighting make it hard for supervisors to know exactly where crews and vehicles are located, how close they are to each other and whether they remain inside safe work limits.
Trucks, loaders and service vehicles share narrow roadways with pedestrians. Mirrors and radios cannot fully remove blind spots, especially on curves and ramps.
Before and after blasting, or when ground support is incomplete, only authorised crews should enter the zone. Manual checks and paper permits are difficult to enforce over long distances.
During fires, smoke events or flooding, control rooms must quickly determine who is underground, who has reached refuge chambers or exits, and which routes remain safe. Manual tag boards and radio calls may be too slow.
Critical items such as fans, pumps, drilling equipment, cable drums and safety barriers are frequently relocated. Without location tracking, crews waste time searching and risk project delays.
Real-time visibility, geofencing, man‑down and collision‑avoidance alerts help prevent incidents and support “zero harm” objectives for underground projects
Knowing where teams and machines actually work, wait and travel enables better shift planning, reduced idle time and more accurate productivity reporting.
RTLS provides auditable records of underground presence, exposure times and evacuation performance for regulators, owners and insurers.
High‑resolution movement data for people, vehicles and materials feeds digital‑twin models, schedule simulations and optimisation tools.
Tunnel and underground work is typically governed by stringent regulations related to ventilation, blast management, emergency egress, electrical safety and confined‑space entry. RTLS complements — but does not replace — these controls by providing accurate, time‑stamped location data for people and assets.
Hardware used in tunnels must withstand vibration, moisture, dust and aggressive temperatures. GridRTLS uses IP66–IP67‑rated UWB anchors and beacons designed for industrial and tunnel environments, with operating ranges roughly from –40 °C to +80 °C and strong resistance to electromagnetic interference. System design and zone logic should be reviewed with project safety teams and local regulators to ensure alignment with standards and owner requirements.
Common positioning and tracking scenarios for this industry.
Workers and contractors wear UWB or hybrid UWB + GPS tags as they move through portals, ramps and headings. Control rooms see live positions by chainage and heading, receive alerts when people cross virtual work limits or enter blast and unsupported zones, and use history for exposure and productivity analysis.
Haul trucks, loaders, utility vehicles and road‑headers are equipped with RTLS devices that continuously measure distance to worker tags and other vehicles. When separation falls below configured thresholds, in‑cab and wearable alerts warn operators and pedestrians, and near‑miss data is logged.
In drills or real emergencies, RTLS shows how many people are at each portal, shaft, cross passage or refuge chamber, and who is still unaccounted for. Control rooms can see last‑known positions and preferred escape routes, improving coordination with rescue teams.
High‑precision GPS/RTK displacement sensors are installed on portals, retaining walls, slopes or buildings above the tunnel alignment. They measure mm‑level movement over time, and can be combined with RTLS data for correlation with construction stages and traffic patterns.
Because tunnel environments are safety‑critical, RTLS for worker protection and collision‑avoidance must provide sub‑meter accuracy, update intervals of 0.5–2 seconds and high system availability (target ≥99.99% for core safety functions). UWB anchors and tags can deliver <30 cm accuracy at up to 10 Hz refresh rates in line‑of‑sight segments, while GPS / RTK devices provide centimetre‑level accuracy for surface monitoring and displacement sensors.
System design should include redundant communication paths, local data buffering for temporary link loss, continuous device‑health monitoring and clear processes for issuing, charging and maintaining tags and beacons over long project durations.
The STD UWB Dual-Channel Base Station is an industrial-grade positioning device designed for tunnel, mining, and underground environments.
The SW UWB Positioning Base Station is an industrial-grade device designed for sub-meter accuracy tracking of personnel, vehicles, and assets in factories, tunnels, and other complex environments.
The WX UWB Wireless Positioning Beacon is a battery-powered industrial-grade UWB device designed for wireless deployment without cable installation.
The XB UWB Wireless Positioning Beacon is a compact, fully wireless, and battery-powered UWB device designed for high-precision positioning without cable deployment.
The SH UWB Positioning Wristband Tag is a high-precision wearable device designed for real-time personnel tracking and safety monitoring in industrial environments such as factories, construction sites, and tunnels.
The GP UWB Positioning Employee Card is a compact, intelligent badge-style positioning device designed for industrial personnel management and safety monitoring. Built on UWB (Ultra-Wideband) technology, it achieves 10–30 cm accuracy, supports real-time location tracking, and enables instant SOS alerts via a one-touch button. The device includes vibration reminders, motion/static detection, and optional NFC/RFID, E-ink display, and LoRa communication modules. With an IP66-rated enclosure and 900 mAh rechargeable battery, it operates continuously in demanding environments such as factories, construction sites, logistics parks, and tunnels.
The AQM Hybrid Positioning Safety Helmet is an industrial-grade smart helmet integrating UWB high-precision positioning, RTK centimeter-level positioning, GPS outdoor positioning, and 4G full-network communication. Designed for worker safety and real-time visibility, it features SOS emergency alerts, TTS voice, motion/static detection, low-battery warnings, and optional NFC / LoRa / 5G communication. With an IP56 rugged rating and a built-in 3000mAh rechargeable battery, the AQM helmet is ideal for construction sites, tunnels, factories, mining, ports, and hazardous environments requiring precise personnel tracking and safety protection.
Real-time tunnel personnel visibility with section-level control—designed for long, linear underground construction environments.
Share your tunnel alignment, construction method and safety priorities, and we’ll design a UWB + GPS RTLS solution — from worker tracking and collision avoidance to emergency evacuation and structural monitoring — tailored to your underground environment.
Share your site layout and accuracy needs--we'll suggest a practical setup.
