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.
Overview: Through prior NSF supported research, the project team had developed a new technology called Emulated Graphical Monitoring to estimate an excavator’s proximity to "invisible" buried utilities in real-time. This technology allows an operator to be visually aware of buried assets in a machine’s vicinity, and offers quantitative feedback of the machine’s distance to vicinal obstructions, thereby preventing accidental utility strikes. This I-Corps project actively engaged with many individuals and companies in order to develop an appropriate Business Model to transition the laboratory based prototype into a commercial product. The project team determined how sector participants, including contractors, utility companies, developers, and equipment manufacturers deal with the issue of excavation safety now, and what improvements and changes to currently available solutions they wanted to see. Based on this, the project team was better able to demonstrate the new product’s capabilities and continue to secure improvement feedback from potential partners as market entry was pursued. In the end, completion of the I-Corps program provided a clear path forward relative to the licensing of the technology and the establishment of a start-up business. A new start-up company, Perception Analytics & Robotics LLC (PeARL) was started and is currently in final negotiations with the University of Michigan to exclusively license the involved intellectual property. Intellectual Merit: 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 a working excavator’s proximity to vicinal buried assets, thereby creating the capability for real time knowledge-based excavator operation and control. The technology that has been commercialized transitioned fundamental knowledge from prior NSF supported research in georeferenced augmented reality visualization, equipment monitoring, and geometric proximity interpretation, and integrated them for excavator spatial awareness and operator knowledge. Commercialization of the developed technology has been critical because accidents involving excavator hits to buried utilities is a long-standing and significant societal problem that disrupts daily life and commerce, and leads to an unacceptable number of fatalities, injuries, property damage, and other costs each year. Broader Impact: This project is transforming 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 is helping realize enormous cost savings and reduction of potential hazards to citizens, improvement in competitiveness of U.S. industry, 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. The project has impacted education by fostering innovation in curriculum at the University of Michigan, and is promoting subsurface utility engineering as an area of specialization in construction education. The Principal Investigator and the supported individuals (ELs) have acquired intensive skills and knowledge leading to an entrepreneurial mindset that is allowing them to make valuable contributions to society as they begin their entrepreneurial careers. In summary, the societal benefit and commercial impact of the project are the reductions in construction and underground infrastructure life-cycle costs that are possible through safe and efficient excavation.
