AIR Option 1: Technology Translation: Development and Evaluation of Field Prototype for Determining Excavator Proximity to Buried Utilities

这个PFI: AIR技术翻译项目专注于翻译地理参考增强现实（AR）和仿真图形监控方面的基础研究成果，以开发一种技术，用于在机器挖掘时实时估计挖掘机与隐形埋在地下的公用设施的接近程度。增强现实是将计算机生成的图像叠加在用户对现实世界的看法上。仿真图形监控是对在真实环境中进行的工程过程进行并行的三维可视化。翻译后的技术有以下独特之处：它可以让挖掘机操作人员持续地看到挖机里埋了什么公用设施？，从而有助于防止公用事业罢工事故；它还可以监控工作中的挖掘机？S接近埋藏资产，从而实现基于知识的挖掘机实时控制。与市场上领先的机器控制技术相比，这些功能为挖掘机操作员提供了典型的态势感知、安全性和信心，这些技术仅限于在挖掘过程中提供坡度控制指导。该项目通过加速开发和评估该技术的现场可部署原型来实现其目标，该技术将沿着商业现实的道路进行客户演示和评估，从而实现市场准备能力，使挖掘机操作员能够直观地了解机器附近的地下公用设施和其他资产，并可以提供机器与附近障碍物的定量反馈。该合作伙伴关系涉及DTE能源公司(密歇根州？美国最大的电力和天然气供应商),Miss Dig System (Michigan？密歇根基础设施运输协会（MITA）的成员公司在挖掘安全市场空间和其他商业化方面提供指导，因为它们涉及将已开发的技术沿着可能导致竞争性商业现实的道路转化的潜力。在美国，每60秒就有一辆挖掘机无意中撞上埋在地下的公用设施，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。该项目的潜在经济影响预计将是将挖掘机操作从以技能为基础的活动转变为以知识为基础的实践，从而在未来三年内提高生产率和安全性，这将有助于美国在新兴的民用基础设施建设和修复行业中的竞争力。在制造业、运输业、采矿业和造船业，从以技能为基础的过程向以知识为基础的过程过渡被认为是有价值的，这些领域也将获得这种好处。长期的社会影响将是通过安全和有效的挖掘来减少建筑和地下基础设施的生命周期成本。

This PFI: AIR Technology Translation project focuses on translating fundamental research findings in Georeferenced Augmented Reality (AR) and Emulated Graphical Monitoring to develop a technology for estimating excavator proximity to invisible buried utilities in real-time while a machine is digging. AR is the superimposition of computer-generated images over a user-view of the real world. Emulated Graphical Monitoring is the concurrent 3D visualization of an engineering process ongoing in the real environment. The translated technology has the following unique features: it can allow excavator operators to persistently see what utilities are buried in a digging machine?s vicinity, thus helping prevent utility strike accidents; it can also allow the monitoring of a working excavator?s proximity to buried assets, thereby enabling real-time knowledge-based excavator control. These features provide exemplary situational awareness, safety, and confidence to excavator operators when compared to the leading competing machine control technologies in this market space that are limited to providing grade control guidance during excavation. The project accomplishes is goals by pursuing an accelerated plan to develop and evaluate a field-deployable prototype of the technology for customer demonstration and evaluation along the path to commercial reality, resulting in a market-ready capability that can allow an excavator operator to be visually aware of buried underground utilities and other assets in the vicinity of a machine, and can offer quantitative feedback of machine distance to vicinal obstructions. The partnership engages DTE Energy Company (Michigan?s largest electricity and gas provider), Miss Dig System (Michigan?s One-Call excavation safety agency), and member companies of the Michigan Infrastructure Transportation Association (MITA) to provide guidance in the excavation safety market space and other commercialization aspects as they pertain to the potential to translate the developed technology along a path that may result in a competitive commercial reality. An excavator unintentionally hits a buried utility every 60 seconds in the U.S. causing fatalities, injuries, and property damage that annually cost billions of dollars. 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 potential economic impact of this project is expected to be the transformation of excavator operation from a skill-based activity to a knowledge-based practice, leading to improvements in productivity and safety within the next three years, which will contribute to the U.S. competitiveness in the burgeoning civil infrastructure construction and rehabilitation industry. Such benefits will also accrue in manufacturing, transportation, mining, and ship-building where transition from skill-based to knowledge-based processes is seen to be of value. The societal impact, long term, will be the reductions in construction and underground infrastructure life-cycle costs that will be possible through safe and efficient excavation.