CEA-Leti, an research institute of the CEA, and Davey Bickford, a worldwide leader in blasting solutions, announced today they have demonstrated,in the frame of Technological Research Institute IRT Nanoelec, a new, wireless system that offers increased safety, flexibility and productivity gains to the blasting market.

The new system, consists of electronic detonators with bi-directional radio modules placed on the surface of a mining pit. This wireless network communicates with a digital blasting system located a few kilometers away from the blasting zone and is controlled by a wireless communication protocol specifically developed and optimized to ensure safe, reliable and synchronized operation of hundreds of detonating elements in open pit mines.