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

AIR 选项 1：技术转化：用于确定挖掘机与埋地公用设施的接近度的现场原型的开发和评估

• 批准号: 1343124
• 负责人: Vineet Kamat
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-10-01 至 2016-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1343124&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: AIR; Option; Technology; Translation; Development

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.

该 PFI：AIR 技术翻译项目专注于翻译地理参考增强现实 (AR) 和模拟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地公用设施的接近程度。 AR 是将计算机生成的图像叠加在现实世界的用户视图上。模拟图形监控是真实环境中正在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附近埋有哪些公用设施，从而有助于防止公用设施罢工事故；它还可以监控正在工作的挖掘机与埋藏资产的接近程度，从而实现基于知识的实时挖掘机控制。与该市场领域中仅限于在挖掘过程中提供坡度控制指导的领先竞争机器控制技术相比，这些功能为挖掘机操作员提供了示范性的态势感知、安全性和信心。该项目通过加快计划开发和评估可现场部署的技术原型来实现目标，以便在商业现实的道路上为客户演示和评估，从而形成市场就绪的能力，使挖掘机操作员能够直观地了解了解机器附近埋藏的地下公用设施和其他资产，并可以提供机器到附近障碍物距离的定量反馈。该合作伙伴关系涉及 DTE Energy Company（密歇根州最大的电力和天然气供应商）、Miss Dig System（密歇根州的一键挖掘安全机构）以及密歇根基础设施运输协会 (MITA) 的成员公司，为挖掘工作提供指导安全市场空间和其他商业化方面，因为它们涉及将开发的技术沿着可能导致竞争性商业现实的路径转化的潜力。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，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，要么是因为他们无法感知公用设施相对于挖掘机的位置。该项目的潜在经济影响预计将使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，这将有助于提高美国在蓬勃发展的民用基础设施建设和修复行业。这些好处也将在制造、运输、采矿和造船领域产生，这些领域从基于技能的流程向基于知识的流程的转变被认为是有价值的。从长远来看，社会影响将是通过安全有效的挖掘来降低建筑和地下基础设施生命周期成本。