I-Corps: Determining Excavator Proximity to Buried Utilities

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

An excavator unintentionally hits a buried utility (e.g., gas pipe, water main, electric cable, etc.) every 60 seconds in the US causing fatalities, injuries, and property damage, that together cost billions of dollars each year. It is widely documented that these accidents occur either because excavator operators do not know where utilities are buried, or because they cannot perceive where the utilities are relative to the digging excavator. The developed technology allows excavator operators to persistently see what utilities lie buried in a digging machine's vicinity, thus helping prevent accidents involving utility strikes. It also allows the monitoring of working excavator proximity to vicinal buried assets, thereby creating the capability for real time knowledge-based excavator operation and control. The technology sought to be commercialized attempts to transition fundamental knowledge from prior NSF supported research in georeferenced augmented reality visualization, equipment monitoring, and geometric proximity interpretation, and integrates them for excavator spatial awareness and operator knowledge. Commercialization of the developed technology is critical because accidents involving excavator hits to buried utilities is a long-standing and significant societal problem that disrupts daily life and commerce that can lead to fatalities, injuries, property damage, and other costs each year. This project will potentially transform excavator operation and control from a primarily skill-based activity to a knowledge-based practice, leading to significant increases in productivity and safety. This is turn will help realize enormous cost savings and reduction of potential hazards to citizens, improvement in industry competitiveness, and reduction in life cycle costs of underground infrastructure. Such benefits will also accrue in fields such as manufacturing, transportation, mining, and ship-building where the transition from skill-based to knowledge-based processes is seen to be of value.