INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT FOR SAFE EXCAVATION

Serious injuries and costly damages caused by excavators hitting under ground utilities are constantly in the headlines of the news media The accidents sometimes result in the death of one or more persons. Thus, excavation represents a dangerous operation that has to lie executed with care. The Construction Automation and Robotics Laboratory at Nort h Carolina State University has been searching for a technology to hel p avoid these types of accidents. A prototype of the active metal dete ction and tracking system has been developed using a nontraditional ap proach. The system generates and transmits its own magnetic impact and detects the coupling effect with any buried utility line in its detec tion range. It is,installed directly on the excavating equipment and i ntegrated with its operation. Experiments have been carried out with t his system and the results are promising. The work deliberated in this paper presents an ongoing effort to develop an effective and reliable system that can be attached to any type of construction and utility d igging equipment for underground utility line detection.