I-Corps: Determining Excavator Proximity to Buried Utilities

挖掘机无意中撞到了埋在地下的公用设施(如煤气管道、总水管、电缆等)。在美国，每60秒就会造成人员伤亡和财产损失，每年总共造成数十亿美元的损失。据广泛记载，这些事故的发生要么是因为挖掘机操作员不知道公用事业设施被埋在哪里，要么是因为他们无法感知公用事业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查看挖掘机附近埋着什么公用事业，从而有助于防止涉及公用事业罢工的事故。它还允许监控工作中的挖掘机接近附近掩埋的资产，从而创造了基于知识的挖掘机实时操作和控制的能力。这项技术寻求商业化，试图将基础知识从以前的NSF支持的地理参考增强现实可视化、设备监控和几何邻近解释的研究中转移出来，并将它们整合到挖掘机空间感知和操作员知识中。开发的技术商业化至关重要，因为挖掘机撞击地下设施的事故是一个长期而重大的社会问题，扰乱了人们的日常生活和商业，每年可能导致人员伤亡、财产损失和其他成本。该项目可能会将挖掘机的操作和控制从主要基于技能的活动转变为基于知识的实践，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险，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、运输、采矿和造船等领域，从基于技能的流程过渡到基于知识的流程被认为是有价值的，这种好处也将在这些领域产生。

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.