The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 17, 2002
Filed:
Aug. 17, 2000
Guenter W. Brune, Bellevue, WA (US);
Albert W. Chau, Woodinville, WA (US);
John E. Mercer, Kent, WA (US);
Digital Control Incorporated, Renton, WA (US);
Abstract
A locator is described for tracking the position of a boring tool and/or one or more buried lines within a region. A flux plane is used to establish a flux vector to guide the portable locator to locate points in a dipole field. A locate line is located in the dipole field by determining a predicted locate line angular orientation based upon horizontal flux vector determinations. The predicted angular orientation limits possible directions to and orientations of a predicted locate line relative to the portable locator. Cable line locating measures a local flux intensity of the locating signal using the portable locator. A cable line angular orientation limits the possible directions to the cable line. A display is configured for periodic updates such that displayed positional relationships are essentially continuous, including accommodation of positional and/or orientation changes seen by the portable locator in dipole or cable line tracking.