Systems and methods for advanced sanitary sewer infrastructure management

• US 9,081,917 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2013
• Issued: 07/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: t4 Spatial LLC
• Original Assignee: United States Infrastructure Management Company
• Inventors: Currin, David Brett, Easter, Clark, Marsh, Brendan, Richards, Edmund Bennett II, Castillo Aqueveque, Rogello Fernando
• Primary Examiner(s): Saxena, Akash
• Application Number:
  US14/360,605
• Publication Number:
  US 20150112647A1
• Time in Patent Office: 852 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2113/14 Pipes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/13 Architectural design, e.g. computer-aided architectural design [CAAD] related to design of buildings, bridges, landscapes, production plants or roads
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/08 Construction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/26 Government or public services business processes related to the transportation industry G06Q50/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

Systems and methods for managing a sanitary sewer infrastructure. In an embodiment, a plurality of representations of infrastructure assets are re-projected from a plane coordinate system into a geospatial coordinate system, such that each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets is associated with a geospatial coordinate. Each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets and its associated geospatial coordinate is stored in one or more databases. Subsequently, geospatial coordinates, collected in the field, may be received from one or more user devices, wherein each geospatial coordinate corresponds to a geospatial location of an infrastructure asset. A stored geospatial coordinate associated with one or more of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets may then be adjusted based on the received geospatial coordinates.

Claims

1. A method for managing a sanitary sewer infrastructure, the method comprising, by at least one hardware processor:

re-projecting a plurality of representations of infrastructure assets from a plane coordinate system into a geospatial coordinate system, such that each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets is associated with at least one geospatial coordinate, wherein the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets comprise a representation of a pipe segment that is associated with one or more geospatial coordinates;

storing each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets and its associated geospatial coordinate in one or more databases;

receiving geospatial coordinates, collected in the field, from one or more user devices, wherein each received geospatial coordinate corresponds to a geospatial location of an infrastructure asset;

adjusting a stored geospatial coordinate associated with one or more of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets based on the received geospatial coordinates;

receiving an inspection data stream for the pipe segment; and

automatically,

identifying one or more faults in the inspection data stream, wherein each of the one or more faults corresponds to at least one of a plurality of frames in the inspection data stream and a linear measurement from a starting point of the inspection data stream, and

for each of the one or more identified faults, calculating a geospatial coordinate for the fault based on the linear measurement corresponding to the fault and a geospatial coordinate associated with the starting point of the inspection data stream, and associating the calculated geospatial coordinate with the at least one frame in the inspection data stream that corresponds to the fault.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an asset identifier for each of the received geospatial coordinates, wherein the plurality of representations of infrastructure assets from the plane coordinate system comprise one or more computer-aided design (CAD) tiles, and wherein adjusting a geospatial coordinate associated with one or more of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets based on the received geospatial coordinates comprises, for each of one or more of the received asset identifiers and its associated received geospatial coordinate:

identifying one of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets that is associated with the received asset identifier;

adjusting the stored geospatial coordinate associated with the identified representation of an infrastructure asset based on the associated received geospatial coordinate;

identifying a subset of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets that were re-projected from a same one of the one or more CAD tiles as the identified representation of an infrastructure asset; and

,

for each of one or more of the identified subset of representations of infrastructure assets, adjusting its stored geospatial coordinate based on its relationship in the CAD tile to the identified representation of an infrastructure asset.

3. The method of claim 1, comprising continually receiving geospatial coordinates, collected in the field, from one or more user devices, and continually and automatically adjusting stored geospatial coordinates associated with one or more of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets based on the continually received geospatial coordinates.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each geospatial coordinate comprises a latitude value, a longitude value, and an elevation value.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets is further associated with a time attribute, and wherein the method further comprises storing the associated time attribute of each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets in the one or more databases.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets comprise a representation of a first manhole and a representation of a second manhole, wherein the pipe segment is located between the first manhole and the second manhole, and wherein the method further comprises, by the at least one hardware processor:

identifying a first geospatial coordinate associated with the representation of the first manhole;

identifying a second geospatial coordinate associated with the representation of the second manhole; and

automatically assigning one or more geospatial coordinates to the representation of the pipe segment based on the first geospatial coordinate and the second geospatial coordinate.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first geospatial coordinate associated with the representation of the first manhole is used as geospatial coordinate associated with the starting point of the inspection data stream.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving one or more inspection videos;

storing the one or more inspection videos; and

associating each of the one or more inspection videos with one of the re-projected plurality of infrastructure assets.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising, for each of the one or more inspection videos, generating one or more accelerated versions of the inspection video.

10. A system for managing a sanitary sewer infrastructure, the system comprising:

at least one hardware processor; and

at least one executable software module that, when executed by the at least one hardware processor,

re-projects a plurality of representations of infrastructure assets from a plane coordinate system into a geospatial coordinate system, such that each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets is associated with at least one geospatial coordinate, wherein the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure asserts comprise a representation of a pipe segment that is associated with one or more geospatial coordinates,

stores each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets and its associated geospatial coordinate in one or more databases,

receives geospatial coordinates, collected in the field, from one or more user devices, wherein each received geospatial coordinate corresponds to a geospatial location of an infrastructure asset,

adjusts a stored geospatial coordinate associated with one or more of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets based on the received geospatial coordinates,

receives an inspection data stream for the pipe segment, and

automatically,

identifies one or more faults in the inspection data stream, wherein each of the one or more faults corresponds to at least one of a plurality of frames in the inspection data stream and a linear measurement from a starting point of the inspection data stream, and,

for each of the one or more identified faults, calculates a geospatial coordinate for the fault based on the linear measurement corresponding to the fault and a geospatial coordinate associated with the starting point of the inspection data stream, and associates the calculated geospatial coordinate with the at least one frame in the inspection data stream that corresponds to the fault.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one executable software module further receives an asset identifier for each of the received geospatial coordinates, wherein the plurality of representations of infrastructure assets from the plane coordinate system comprise one or more computer-aided design (CAD) tiles, and wherein adjusting a geospatial coordinate associated with one or more of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets based on the received geospatial coordinates comprises, for each of one or more of the received asset identifiers and its associated received geospatial coordinate:

identifying one of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets that is associated with the received asset identifier;

adjusting the stored geospatial coordinate associated with the identified representation of an infrastructure asset based on the associated received geospatial coordinate;

identifying a subset of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets that were re-projected from a same one of the one or more CAD tiles as the identified representation of an infrastructure asset; and

,

for each of one or more of the identified subset of representations of infrastructure assets, adjusting its stored geospatial coordinate based on its relationship in the CAD tile to the identified representation of an infrastructure asset.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one executable software module further continually receives geospatial coordinates, collected in the field, from one or more user devices, and continually and automatically adjusts stored geospatial coordinates associated with one or more of the stored re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets based on the continually received geospatial coordinates.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein each geospatial coordinate comprises a latitude value, a longitude value, and an elevation value.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets is further associated with a time attribute, and wherein the at least one executable software module further stores the associated time attribute of each of the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets in the one or more databases.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the re-projected plurality of representations of infrastructure assets comprise a representation of a first manhole and a representation of a second manhole, wherein the pipe segment is located between the first manhole and the second manhole, and wherein the at least one executable software module further:

identifies a first geospatial coordinate associated with the representation of the first manhole;

identifies a second geospatial coordinate associated with the representation of the second manhole; and

automatically assigns one or more geospatial coordinates to the representation of the pipe segment based on the first geospatial coordinate and the second geospatial coordinate.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the first geospatial coordinate associated with the representation of the first manhole is used as the geospatial coordinate associated with the starting point of the inspection data stream.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one executable software module further:

receives one or more inspection videos;

stores the one or more inspection videos; and

associates each of the one or more inspection videos with one of the re-projected plurality of infrastructure assets.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the at least one executable software module further, for each of the one or more inspection videos, generates one or more accelerated versions of the inspection video.