TREKK Tools Make Underground Vault Inspections Safer
By Cyn Whitfield, Senior Marketing Specialist
When an environment contains unknown air quality and high-voltage electrical cables in an aging infrastructure, even the simplest vault-related task can be hazardous. According to the Utility Safety and OPS Leadership Network, there are hundreds of thousands of man-accessible vaults in the US potentially exposing tens of thousands of utility workers to unknown hazards in vaults each year. Building a map of an unknown environment while navigating through it is the power of TREKK’s technology solutions.
TREKK is IMROVING LIVES with technology tools to reduce manned entry during vault inspections. Through our experience working with several electrical utility companies, we know that there are national code requirements and standard practices that must be followed. Every worker who enters a vault appreciates the procedures that govern the work. However, local inspections often have their own unique characteristics and challenges for each manhole and vault, which require unique solutions.
HD 3D images can reduce the hazards of underground vault assessment and inventory.
TREKK brings experience in all methods of capturing and delivering survey design grade data for civil infrastructure projects. Using our in-house technology tools, we combine sound conventional survey practices with Simultaneous Location and Mapping (SLAM) scanners and 360 panoramic and IR camera technology for unmanned entry surveillance and condition assessment.
TREKK’s proven, seamless workflow merges data from a variety of tools. This allows us to provide innovative solutions to our clients by combining technology to work smarter, faster and most importantly, safer.
“Using our remote 360-infrared camera, field crews can assess a structure for electrical hotspots in minutes without having to gear up for a confined space entry,” said TREKK Innovation Specialist, Jared Carey. “The safety benefits alone improve the lives of field technicians everywhere.”
By using SLAM technology, TREKK’s field crews stay safely outside of electrical vaults, manholes and voids of occlusion areas. SLAM can also go where mobile LiDAR scanners have limited accessibility, like sparse GPS areas of tunnels and under bridges. SLAM removes the tedious and timely task of repositioning static scanners when a lesser accuracy of geometry is required.
Additionally, we can tie to above ground locations using terrestrial 3D mobile LiDAR and georeferenced time-stamped HD images, backpack LiDAR, static scanners and unmanned or UAS aerial LiDAR/photogrammetry. Because many of these vaults are located in or along the roadway, they can cause additional safety issues if documented traditionally. Our tools are less obtrusive to the traveling public because they are faster and provide a smaller work zone. A complete picture of the environment can be mined beyond the intended use, reducing revisits to the field and change orders on projects. Because the wealth of data can be extracted and assessed from the desktop, crosscut-sections can be obtained vertically or horizontally in any area needed, 3D PDFs can provide a 360-degree view of the area, and referenced photography provides additional assessment.
“It’s amazing how far we’ve come since the days of Polaroids and pencil sketches,” said Carey. “Today, our modernized manhole inspection workflow offers measurable 3D models with high-resolution panoramic photography of each structure. Some of the biggest questions trending in the underground include words such as ‘size,’ ‘capacity’ and ‘hazards.’ Now you can literally measure and visually assess the condition of these manholes from your desk.”