Detecting field distortion in underground line location
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A line locator receiver comprising:
- at least three electromagnetic field sensors;
receiving electronics associated with said sensors, wherein said receiving electronics and said sensors are capable of making at least three measurements of an electromagnetic field and communicating said measurements;
a processing device, capable of receiving said measurements from said receiving electronics, processing said measurements, and producing one or more parameters; and
a display, capable of receiving said one or more parameters from said processing device, and communicating said one or more parameters to an operator, wherein said sensors are electric coils, wherein said processing device is capable of performing a linear regression based on the at least three measurements of said electromagnetic field and said one or more parameters include an error function, and wherein said regression produces a plurality coefficients and a portion of said coefficients are parameters communicated to said display.
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Abstract
An underground line locating receiver is disclosed which can determine whether the magnetic field it detects is representative of a line to be located or whether distortions in the magnetic field indicate an anomalous condition, and that therefore the reported line location measurement is suspect.
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Citations
13 Claims
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1. A line locator receiver comprising:
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at least three electromagnetic field sensors;
receiving electronics associated with said sensors, wherein said receiving electronics and said sensors are capable of making at least three measurements of an electromagnetic field and communicating said measurements;
a processing device, capable of receiving said measurements from said receiving electronics, processing said measurements, and producing one or more parameters; and
a display, capable of receiving said one or more parameters from said processing device, andcommunicating said one or more parameters to an operator, wherein said sensors are electric coils, wherein said processing device is capable of performing a linear regression based on the at least three measurements of said electromagnetic field and said one or more parameters include an error function, and wherein said regression produces a plurality coefficients and a portion of said coefficients are parameters communicated to said display. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A line locator receiver comprising:
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at least three electromagnetic field sensors;
receiving electronics associated with said sensors, wherein said receiving electronics and said sensors are capable of making at least three measurements of an electromagnetic field and communicating said measurements;
a processing device, capable of receiving said measurements from said receiving electronics, processing said measurements, and producing one or more parameters; and
a display, capable of receiving said one or more parameters from said processing device, andcommunicating said one or more parameters to an operator, wherein said sensors are electric coils, wherein said processing device is capable of performing a linear regression on at least three measurements of said electromagnetic field and said one or more parameters include an error function, and wherein said processing device is capable of performing a mathematical fitting producing coefficients and an error term. - View Dependent Claims (10)
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11. A method of determining whether an electromagnetic field is distorted, comprising:
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making at least three measurements of an electromagnetic field at least three different points in space to produce a data set;
performing a mathematical analysis of said data set, said analysis including fitting said data set to an expected model of said electromagnetic field; and
calculating at least one parameter based on said analysis, wherein said at least three measurements are made by using a set of electric coils, wherein said expected model is an infinite straight line of current. - View Dependent Claims (12)
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13. A method for determining whether a field containing energy conforms to an expected model of said field, comprising:
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making a plurality of measurements, representative of the energy in the field, wherein the number of said measurements is greater than degrees of freedom in an expected model, so as to produce a set of data;
performing a mathematical fitting of said set of data to said mathematical model, including producing at least an error term;
comparing said error term to a threshold value; and
indicating a distortion in the field when the error term exceeds the threshold value.
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Specification