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

此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本研究成果，以开发一种在机器挖掘时实时估计挖掘机与不可见的地下设施的接近程度的技术。AR是将计算机生成的图像叠加在真实世界的用户视图上。仿真图形监控是在真实环境中进行的工程过程的并发3D可视化。翻译后的技术具有以下独特功能：它可以让挖掘机操作员持续看到挖掘机-S附近埋有哪些公用设施，从而有助于防止公用设施被撞事故；它还可以监控工作中的挖掘机-S靠近被掩埋的资产，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模范的情景感知、安全和信心，与该市场领域领先的竞争机器控制技术相比，这些技术仅限于在挖掘期间提供坡度控制指导。该项目通过实施加速计划来实现IS目标，该计划旨在开发和评估该技术的现场可部署原型，以便客户在实现商业现实的道路上进行演示和评估，从而产生一种市场就绪的能力，使挖掘机操作员能够直观地了解机器附近埋在地下的公用设施和其他资产，并能够提供机器距离到附近障碍物的定量反馈。该合作伙伴关系涉及DTE Energy Company(密歇根州S最大的电力和天然气供应商)、Misse Dig System(密歇根州S一呼挖掘安全机构)和密歇根州基础设施运输协会(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，因为这些方面涉及将开发的技术转化为可能导致竞争性商业现实的道路的潜力。在美国，一台挖掘机每隔60秒就会无意中撞到一家被掩埋的公用事业公司，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。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，从以技能为基础的流程过渡到以知识为基础的流程被认为是有价值的，这种好处也将在这些领域产生。从长远来看，其社会影响将是通过安全和高效的挖掘可能减少建筑和地下基础设施生命周期成本。

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.