Patent ID: 11953643
Assignee: SEESCAN, INC.
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 15:
16. A system for generating maps from magnetic field utility line position and orientation estimates, comprising:
one or more magnetic field sensing locating devices including one or more of vehicle-mounted magnetic field sensing locating devices and/or hand-carried magnetic field sensing locating devices, each of the plurality of magnetic field sensing locating devices comprising:
at least one antenna node to sense magnetic fields emitted from a plurality of buried utilities at various discrete point locations in time and space along the Earth's surface and provide antenna output signals corresponding to the sensed magnetic fields at each discrete time and space location, wherein the antenna nodes comprise dodecahedral antenna array providing the outputs from twelve antennas of the dodecahedral antenna array;
a receiver circuit to receive and process the antenna node output signals to provide receiver output signals corresponding to the received magnetic field signals;
a position and orientation element to determine the position and orientation of the magnetic field sensing locating device in a world coordinate system; and
a processing unit coupled to the receiver output to receive the receiver output signals and position and orientation output signals and generate at one or more discrete points an estimation of one or more utility positions and orientations via a utility position and orientation estimating device;
a map generation element to receive the processing unit data and generate a map including a plurality of line segments estimative of utility line positions and orientations wherein each of the line segments corresponds to one discrete point estimate of utility position and orientation, wherein the map is combined onto a base map of a geographical region; and
a display device to receive map generation element data and to display the map.