Martin Engineering has launched a digital system for industrial air cannons to improve efficiency, reliability and performance.
In mines, air cannons use timed compressed‑air blasts to clear clogged material from chutes, improving flow and reducing downtime. But according to Brad Pronschinske, the global air cannon product manager at Martin, operators have few tools to monitor cannon efficiency. “Air cannons have been around for more than 50 years, but until now there has been no reliable way for plant operators to understand how effectively they are actually performing as a sequence,” said Pronschinske in a news release.
The company’s new N2 Air Cannon Intelligence System (ACI) is designed to address this issue. The system uses battery-powered nodes mounted directly to the air cannon. These nodes communicate with a centralized cellular gateway via long-range radio frequencies. A single gateway can support more than 1,000 sensors across a site, according to the company.
“Many customers simply don’t have the time or resources to continuously monitor air cannon performance. ACI gives them actionable information automatically, helping maintenance teams focus attention where it’s actually needed to keep critical material-flow systems operating reliably,” Pronschinske added.
Martin said the platform is designed to support reliability and efficiency, while reducing labour wasted on manually checking individual cannons.
ACI operates independently of plant Wi-Fi or control networks and can typically be installed without a plant shutdown.
The new system will be on display in Derbyshire, U.K. at Hillhead 2026, from June 23 to 25.
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