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

该PFI：AIR技术翻译项目的重点是翻译地理参考增强现实（AR）和仿真图形监控的基础研究成果，以开发一种技术，用于在机器挖掘时实时估计挖掘机接近不可见的地下设施。AR是计算机生成的图像在用户对真实的世界的看法上的叠加。仿真图形监控是在真实的环境中进行的工程过程的并行3D可视化。翻译的技术具有以下独特的功能：它可以让挖掘机操作员持续看到挖掘机中埋有什么公用设施？的附近，从而有助于防止公用事业罢工事故，它也可以允许监控工作挖掘机？挖掘机与被埋资产的接近程度，从而实现基于知识的实时挖掘机控制。这些功能为挖掘机操作员提供了示例性的态势感知、安全性和信心，而在该市场空间中，领先的竞争机器控制技术仅限于在挖掘期间提供坡度控制指导。该项目通过追求加速计划来实现其目标，以开发和评估该技术的现场可部署原型，以便沿着商业现实的道路进行客户演示和评估，从而产生市场就绪的能力，可以让挖掘机操作员直观地了解机器附近的地下公用设施和其他资产，并且可以提供机器到邻近障碍物的距离的定量反馈。该伙伴关系涉及DTE能源公司（密歇根州？美国最大的电力和天然气供应商），小姐挖掘系统（密歇根州？的One-Call挖掘安全机构），以及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，因为它们涉及到将开发的技术沿着一条可能导致竞争性商业现实的道路转化的潜力。在美国，挖掘机每60秒就会无意中击中一个被埋的公用设施，造成人员伤亡和财产损失，每年造成数十亿美元的损失。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设施埋在哪里，要么是因为他们不能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挖掘机操作从基于技能的活动转变为基于知识的实践，从而在未来三年内提高生产力和安全性，这将有助于提高美国在新兴的民用基础设施建设和修复行业的竞争力。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，这些领域也将产生这种好处。从长远来看，社会影响将是通过安全有效的挖掘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.