## 1 Introduction  
A high-bandwidth wireless solution would be of significant value in modern mining operations to enhance efficiency, safety, and productivity. They enable the real-time transmission of critical data, ensuring that information from various sensors and monitoring devices is swiftly communicated to control centres and decision-makers. This immediacy supports advanced automation technologies, allowing for the precise remote control of machinery and vehicles, and the seamless operation of automated processes. Furthermore, a high-bandwidth infrastructure ensures rapid and reliable safety communications, which is vital for protecting workers in the hazardous stope environment. It allows for instant alerts and emergency responses, enhancing the overall safety of mining operations. Additionally, a high-bandwidth infrastructure supports comprehensive data analysis, where the data can be analysed to optimize operations and inform strategic decisions. By leveraging a high-bandwidth wireless infrastructure, mining companies can significantly improve their operational effectiveness, reduce risks associated with equipment failures and environmental hazards, and achieve better overall performance, ultimately leading to increased productivity, profitability, and safety for stope activities. An example of an application could be the transmission of LiDAR data from robots to facilitate automation, mapping terrain, detecting potential obstacles, and determining safe pathways in real-time. These automated robots could be used to calculate the ideal locations to place dynamic in a stope, as well as facilitating the installation of the dynamite instead of using people, thus reducing risk to human lives. Another example could be the transmission of thermal and acoustic data to a processing node to identify loose rocks and trigger alarms if the area is unsafe. The transmission and analysis of geophone or accelerometer data could also be used to detect seismic activity and trigger appropriate alarms. Other applications include maintaining communication infrastructure; environmental monitoring using gas, temperature, and humidity sensors; and equipment monitoring to ensure high efficiency and safety. Due to the critical nature of these applications, the communication infrastructure would need to have excellent levels of jitter and latency; and if high-bandwidth applications such as LiDAR signal transmissions or geophone analysis are required then the infrastructure would need to support excellent levels of jitter and latency whilst transmitting at very high bandwidths. The number of studies on wireless communication in slopes is extremely limited. While various technologies have been proposed for tunnels and soft rock mines such as coal mines [1, 2], none have emerged as a mainstream solution for hard rock slopes such as the underground gold and platinum stope environment. Underground gold and platinum mine stopes are seen as much harsher environments due to their small size (approximately 1.5 m in height and 20 m in width), rough surfaces, as well as their irregular shape due to the requirement of blasting for hard rock mines, and frequent path blockages due to support pillars as well as large metallic mining equipment. Gold and platinum mines are also several kilometres underground; thus, it is vital to have an energy efficient system to prevent unnecessary battery replacements as it is not feasible to store large numbers of batteries underground due to health and safety reasons. To develop the best possible wireless solution for underground mine stopes, the technology would need to support high data rates for productivity-enhancement applications, low-power consumption to reduce battery replacements, and robustness to cope with the harsh stope environment. Underground mines are dynamic, with each having peculiar conditions. They continue to involve extreme occupations in very hazardous environments, such as vehicle accidents, roof falls, fire, explosions, the release of toxic gases, and floods.