I-Corps: Determining Excavator Proximity to Buried Utilities

在美国，每60秒就有一台挖掘机无意中撞到埋在地下的公用设施（如燃气管道、水管、电缆等），造成人员伤亡和财产损失，每年造成数十亿美元的损失。广泛的记录表明，这些事故的发生要么是因为挖掘机操作员不知道公用设施埋在哪里，要么是因为他们无法感知公用设施相对于挖掘挖掘机的位置。这项开发的技术使挖掘机操作员能够持续地看到挖掘机器附近埋着什么公用设施，从而有助于防止公用设施罢工造成的事故。它还可以监测工作中的挖掘机是否接近附近的埋藏资产，从而实现基于知识的挖掘机实时操作和控制。该技术寻求商业化尝试，将先前NSF支持的地理参考增强现实可视化、设备监控和几何接近解释研究的基础知识转化为基础知识，并将其集成到挖掘机空间感知和操作人员知识中。已开发技术的商业化至关重要，因为涉及挖掘机撞击地下公用设施的事故是一个长期存在的重大社会问题，它扰乱了日常生活和商业，每年都可能导致死亡、伤害、财产损失和其他损失。该项目可能会将挖掘机的操作和控制从主要以技能为基础的活动转变为以知识为基础的实践，从而显著提高生产率和安全性。这将有助于实现巨大的成本节约和减少对公民的潜在危害，提高行业竞争力，降低地下基础设施的生命周期成本。在制造业、运输业、采矿业和造船业等领域，从以技能为基础的过程向以知识为基础的过程的转变被认为是有价值的。

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.