Utility locating system with mobile base station
Mobile base stations for use with one or more portable utility locators to aid in determining the location of a particular locator during operation and to receive information associated with the utility for storage and/or retransmission to other devices or systems are disclosed.
1 . A mobile buried utility locating system, comprising:
a vehicle;
one or more buried utility locators;
a plurality of antennas disposed on the vehicle, the antennas including a positioning system antenna for receiving positioning signals for determining positions information of the vehicle and a wireless local area network (WLAN) antenna for receiving and sending radio signals;
a satellite positioning system receiver, operatively coupled to an output of the positioning system antenna, for determining positioning information of the vehicle based on the received positioning signals;
a WLAN antenna and a WLAN transceiver, operatively coupled to an output of the WLAN antenna, for receiving and sending radio signals including data from and to the one or more buried utility locator transceivers and the one or more buried utility locator transmitter transceivers;
a processing element disposed on or mounted to on the vehicle, wherein the processing element is configured to communicate with the one or more positioning system receivers and the WLAN transceiver to process data received from the one or more buried utility locators and one or more buried utility locator transmitters and store positioning data determined in the positioning system receiver in conjunction with the locator and/or transmitter data in a non-transitory memory; and
a power supply subsystem, disposed on or mounted to the vehicle, for providing electrical power for the processing element, positioning system receiver, and WLAN transceiver.
2 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises a truck with a cap-type structure disposed on a bed of the truck and the antennas are disposed on an exterior surface of the cap-type structure.
3 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 2 , the satellite positioning system receiver, the WLAN transceiver, and the processing element are disposed within a space enclosed by the cap-type structure.
4 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 3 , wherein the cap-type structure, the satellite positioning system receiver, the WLAN transceiver, and the processing element are mechanically configured to be rollably or slidably removable from the truck.
5 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 1 , further comprising more sensors including a multi-axis accelerometer, a multi-axis compass sensor, a multi-axis gyroscope, a barometer, a light sensor, and a temperature sensor, wherein the one or more sensors are coupled to the processing element for providing sensor output data to the processing element, associating the sensor data with data provided the processing element from the one or more utility locators, and storing the associated sensor data and data provided lo the processing element in a non-transitory memory on the vehicle.
6 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 1 , further comprising a GPS receiver.
7 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 6 , wherein the GPS receiver determines information from GPS signals received at the GPS antenna and sends the determined information to the one or more utility locators.
8 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 7 , wherein the determined GPS information includes timing information.
9 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 1 , wherein the processing element is farther configured to communicate with one or more utility locator transmitters.
10 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 6 , wherein the GPS receiver determines information from GPS signals received at the GPS antenna and sends the determined information to the one or more utility locator transmitters.
11 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 2 , wherein the cap-type structure comprises one or more of metallic material, plastic, fiberglass, or a combination there of.
12 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 11 , wherein the cap-type structure is shaped and sized to mount in one or more truck bed configurations.
13 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 1 , wherein the WLAN is a WiFi system.
14 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 1 , wherein WLAN is a Bluetooth system.
15 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 6 , wherein the GPS receiver is configured to determine positional information from GPS signals received at the GPS antenna and send the determined positional information to the one or more buried utility locators.
16 . The mobile buried utility locating system of claim 15 , wherein the determined positional information includes timing information.