Other

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company

Joe T Minarovic

Armond D Cosman

Gary H Knippelmier

Kenneth D Rebers

Elmont E Hollingsworth

David C Worboys

The most likely path for an underground utility having an unknown location is predicted using artificial intelligence. A cognitive system is trained with details associated with historical utility installations whose underground paths are known. The system is applied to whatever installation details are available for the unknown underground utility such as geographic features which are subjected to spatial correlation to derive geographic locations relative to a region of interest for the underground utility. Cognitive analysis is performed on the locations in association with the features to generate candidate paths for the utility. The candidate paths are presented to the user along with computed confidence scores. The installation details may further include nongeographic features used in the cognitive analysis such as a date of installation of the utility or an entity associated with the utility.

Predicting paths of underground utilities

An electronic marker for locating obscured objects such as buried conduits has a built-in level indicator to provide a visual indication of when the marker has been properly oriented, e.g., a flat marker which should be positioned horizontally when deployed. The level indicator can be an air-bubble level formed from a transparent semispherical portion of the marker body with a partially-filled chamber. Alternatively, the level indicator can be a gravity-ball level with a circular ridge formed along the concave interior surface of the semispherical portion and a ball located within the ridge. In a further embodiment the level indicator is an electronic level having a tilt indicator circuit in which an electronic controller selectively illuminates light sources in response to signals from tilt sensors. The light sources may for example comprise four light-emitting diodes located at four respective corners of the marker body.

Electronic marker with integral level indicator

A portion of a street surface to be removed for access to a manhole cover is defined by placing a design mask on the street with a cutout overlying an electronic marker embedded in the street proximate the manhole. The design mask is oriented such that a larger cutout overlies the manhole cover, by aligning the design mask along an established direction. The design mask can be a template with a circular cutout, or a stencil with a ring cutout. When the marker is located proximate a curb line, the established direction may correspond to a normal from the curb line. A rectangular design mask can be oriented by keeping an edge of the design mask which is closest to a curb line parallel with the curb line. Alternatively, a compass heading may be used, and a pointer feature of the design mask can be aligned with the compass heading.

Manhole marker

A service tee marker fixture comprises a disk marker and a cylindrical attachment sleeve fastened concentrically to the disk marker and constructed of a flexible material which provides a releasable friction fit with a service tee cap. For certain sleeve materials a stiffener plate is used to secure an end portion of sleeve adjacent to the disk marker. Detents are formed inside the attachment sleeve to grip matching ribs on the cap. An integrally formed inwardly-extending annular flange at an open end of the sleeve helps retain the sleeve on the cap. When installed the wire coil is horizontal and the marker shields the tee, and is further centered over a centerline of the main pipe. A novel method is also disclosed for using the service tee marker fixtures to survey and locate service line end points.

Installation of service tee marker fixture having disk marker and concentric attachment sleeve

A marker stake for locating a boundary reference point on a sports field can be buried and out of sight when not in use, and then quickly located using an electronic receiver which detects a signal emitted by an electronic marker in the marker stake. Various field boundary indicators can be removably attached to the marker stake. The stake may be embodied in a cylindrical body constructed of a moldable polymer with a socket at one end for receiving a pin or post of the field boundary indicator, and the electronic marker embedded inside the body. The electronic marker may be a passive LC marker tuned to a frequency associated with a known field sport. Different sets of such marker stakes tuned to different frequencies may be used to mark and relocate reference points for multiple sports played on the same field.

Electronic marker stakes for sports fields

Service tee marker fixture with concentric attachment sleeve

A marker fixture for attachment to a utility conduit such as a telecommunications cable. The fixture has an extension member with an electronic marker at one end, and is secured at the other end to the cable. The extension member is movable between a retracted position wherein the marker is adjacent an access point and an extended position wherein the marker is distant from the access point. The extension member is preferably biased toward the extended position and releasably secured at the marker end proximate the utility structure. The marker fixtures may be pre-installed on a utility infrastructure. The extension member is loosely secured so that the fixture may be moved around the cable after it has been installed in a trench to lie atop the access point. The low profile and conforming shape of the fixture make it particularly advantageous for pre-installation on flexible cables wound on large reels.

Pop-up cable electronic marker

A surface tracker includes a tubular marker body having an interior electronic marker and a visual indicator attached to an upper end of the marker body which extends away from the marker body. When deployed, the marker body is mostly underground and the visual indictor extends upwardly from the ground level to provide above-ground visual recognition. The electronic marker may be a passive electronic marker that includes a ferrite core assembly having a longitudinal axis which is generally parallel to a longitudinal axis of the marker body. The visual indicator may be a plurality of resilient filaments which pass through a hole in a tab portion of the marker body at the upper end thereof, the filaments being folded about the tab portion and secured to the tab portion using a heat-shrink tube. In an exemplary embodiment, the filaments extend about six inches from the marker body and are brightly colored. Multiple trackers can be used to mark the path of a buried utility. Due to the resilient and durable nature of the filaments, they are resistant to wear and tear and the elements. The visual indication, along with the ability to electronically detect the marker, provides a tracker with superior locating capability.

Surface tracker

A method of joining two pipe ends, by forming male threads on an end of a first pipe with a steep taper angle, forming matching female threads on an end of a second pipe, and applying adhesive material to the threads before twisting the pipes to fully engage the male and female threads, thereby spreading the adhesive material across adjacent load-bearing surfaces of the threads. The threads have multiple start locations for thread engagement so that the pipe ends may be twisted to achieve full engagement in less than one full relative rotation. The male and female threads are formed with a squeeze angle between matching surfaces of the threads between 0.5 and 5.0 degrees. The finished joint provides immediate leak-tightness, and immediate tensile, compressive and torsional strength and does not protrude outside of the pipe profile. The technique may also be used to join pipes constructed of dissimilar materials, particularly by using a coupler that has the appropriate threading, and securing the coupler to a non-threaded pipe end using any convenient means, such as a mechanical fit, or fusion bonding.

Plastic pipe adhesive joint

A surface tracker includes a tubular marker body having an interior electronic marker and a visual indicator attached to an upper end of the marker body which extends away from the marker body. When deployed, the marker body is mostly underground and the visual indictor extends upwardly from the ground level to provide above-ground visual recognition. The visual indicator may be a plurality of resilient filaments which pass through a hole in a tab portion of the marker body at the upper end thereof, the filaments being folded about the tab portion and secured to the tab portion using a heat-shrink tube. The visual indication, along with the ability to electronically detect the marker, provides a tracker with superior locating capability.

Utility structure guard

A buried closure guard has an electronic transponder attached to a flat, perforated carrier sheet constructed of a flexible polymer. Holes in the carrier sheet, which serve to anchor the guard, preferably have an effective diameter of at least about 1&frac12;&Prime; to allow typical backfill materials to pass through. By providing a webbed carrier, any protrusion of a digging tool (such as teeth on a backhoe bucket) will catch on one of these holes and pull at the carrier to make it further visible during excavation. The perforated construction of the sheet allows backfill material to settle and pass through the carrier without significantly shifting or bending the carrier. The carrier also makes it easy to manually deploy the transponder, i.e., maintain a proper horizontal orientation of the transponder coil. The transponder can be attached to the carrier sheet in a number of ways, particularly by affixing the transponder to a central portion of the carrier sheet using a mechanical, heat (fusion), or adhesive bond.

Closure guard with electronic marker and perforated carrier sheet

A device for electronically marking a buried closure has a transponder and a shield or cover affixed to the transponder in such a manner that, when attached to the buried closure, the transponder is positioned at a predetermined location and orientation with respect to the known position and orientation of the buried closure. The shield can have a raised portion housing the transponder, and is preferably elongated with an arcuate cross-section, generally larger than the buried closure.

Growing community of inventors

Georgetown, TX, United States of America

Joe T Minarovic