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Robotics Business Review

ULC Technologies Automates Underground Infrastructure Mapping

Organization: ULC Technologies
Country: USA
Website: https://ulctechnologies.com/
Year Founded: 2001
Number of Employees: 101-500
Innovation Class: Applications & Markets Innovation
Innovation Subclass: Utilities

The improved performance of RUSS generates higher resolution maps to reduce the opportunity for underground infrastructure damage during digging operations.

Description:
RBRlogoThe most common cause of underground infrastructure damage is not knowing where the infrastructure is located. The increased use of plastic pipes also reduces the reliability of existing underground scanning devices. The Robotic Underground Survey System (RUSS) employs the latest Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) sensors to autonomously map underground infrastructure before the start of a digging operation.

Analysis:
In 2019, the Common Ground Alliance DIRT Report estimated that the annual societal costs of damages to buried utilities in the U.S. is approximately $30 billion. 

RUSS is a semi-autonomous system that assists utility crews in locating and surveying underground infrastructure and by creating accurate maps of buried pipelines and cables.


The robot employs a dual antenna Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) with multiple degrees-of-freedom to adjust antenna polarization angles and initiate multiple scanning modes.


This allows for improved performance compared to conventional manual scanning that employs a human operator pushing a single antenna mounted in a cart.


Precise positioning of the dual antenna system is performed autonomously to provide finer resolution scans than a manual scan.


The base unit navigates along a predetermined path and avoids collisions leveraging several sensors that include Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver, ultrasonic and LiDAR. – Mike Oitzman








 
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