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Electronic marker devices and systems

  • US 9,746,572 B2
  • Filed: 10/16/2014
  • Issued: 08/29/2017
  • Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2013
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. An integrated buried utility locator system for locating buried utilities using magnetic sensing while simultaneously receiving marker device signals, comprising:

  • a marker device excitation transmitter module for generating and sending a marker device radio frequency excitation signal at a marker device excitation signal frequency;

    a utility locator front end subsystem to simultaneously receive a magnetic field signal emitted from a buried utility resulting from AC current flowing therein and a radio frequency magnetic field reply signal from a marker device responsive to the excitation signal;

    a processing element for processing the received buried utility signals and marker device reply signal and generating information associated with the buried utility, including depth and/or positional information of the buried utility, and information associated with the marker device, including depth and/or positional information of the marker device, based on the received buried utility signal and marker device reply signal; and

    a non-transitory memory for storing the information associated with the buried utility and the marker device;

    wherein the marker device excitation signal is sent at least partially simultaneously to receiving the buried utility signal.

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