Real-Time Hybrid Virtuality for Prevention of Excavation Related Utility Strikes

Abstract

Excavation related damage to underground utility lines is a serious and widespread problem. It is estimated that there are close to 500,000 utility strikes in the United States every year. Further analysis reveals that this number equates to one utility struck every minute. Such utility line strikes lead to fatalities and injuries, costly service disruptions, fines and penalties, and heavy repair costs. The decade from 2001–2010 saw a total of 544 major excavation related accidents resulting in 37 fatalities, 152 injuries, and close to $200 million in property damage. Lack of accurate position and semantic data of buried utilities coupled with absence of persistent visual guidance are two key problems facing excavator operators. The third obstacle to safe excavation operations is the lack of real-time spatial awareness of the proximity of the digging implement to the underlying neighborhood utilities. In an attempt to alleviate this problem, the authors propose a real-time visual emulation framework to improve equipment operators’ knowledge and spatial awareness during excavation. A computational framework that enables concurrent visualization of real jobsites using three-dimensional (3D) geographic information system models to represent terrain and subsurface utility infrastructure is presented. The proposed framework enables real-time operations monitoring and incorporates proximity sensing and collision detection algorithms, providing audio-visual warnings when safety thresholds are breached. This paper describes the details of the proposed damage prevention framework along with its implementation.