How do you find out if it’s safe to excavate in a particular location without causing damage to excavating equipment or buried man-made infrastructure? For the most part, you start digging until we hit something. The same tends to be true whether you are digging a garden or excavating an entire intersection, and once you hit something, the damage already may be done.
In this manner, about $30 billion in damages was caused last year to critical underground infrastructure in the U.S. by unnecessary digging, according to the Common Ground Alliance.
Sensors capable of subsurface penetration help, but only tell part of the story. Exodigo, a company that leverages sensors and AI to enable 3D imaging and mapping of underground locations, is looking to tell the rest.
The company, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, announced a $29 million seed funding round last month, along with launching commercial availability of its technology, and is close to kicking off pilot projects of its technology in California, Florida and Texas. The funding round was led by Zeev Ventures and 10D Ventures, with participation from SquarePeg Capital, JIBE Ventures, Israel-based construction firms Tidhar Construction and WXG Ltd.
Exodigo believes it can help companies in construction and other industries with a sensor system that can sense subsurface areas to a depth of about 10 meters, more than deep enough to locate utility infrastructure such as pipes and cable, as well as large rocks, said Exodigo CEO and co-founder Jeremy Suard. In the process, they may not only be saving companies from equipment damage and other costs, but also some of the $100 billion that Exodigo estimated is spent every year on unnecessary excavation and drilling for discovery purposes.
The company’s system uses the collected data, processed by AI and cloud computing, to produce a thorough 3D map of the area in about one day. Exodigo’ sensors are non-invasive and can be carried by flying drones or earthbound carts.
“Our proprietary artificial intelligence platform leverages heavy cloud computing simulations to create precise maps of the underground from all the different signals,” Suard told Fierce Electronics via email. “Unlike any other solution on the market, we can measure and make sense of all the signals, fusing all of the data into one, precise map of the underground.”
Suard also said that while Exodigo’s system can map to a depth that catches most risk-factor objects, getting a realistic sense of the size of the object is more important. “In the underground, absolute depth is not the right parameter,” he said. “It's actually a question of proportions and the ‘size’ of the objects you are looking for compared to their depths. For instance, utilities can be located up to tens of feet depth, while oil & gas reservoirs can be miles underground.”
The company’s future products “will map even deeper explorations, and a broad array of use cases such as documenting soil layers, locating minerals, and even wetland delineation,” Suard added. Future iterations of the system also will reduce the processing time for the creation of maps from a day to “hours,” he said.
Suard also said Exodigo is following the emerging field of gravity sensors, and may incorporate new sensor technologies as they become available. “One of our core principles is to partner with the absolute best possible sensor technologies across all available branches of physics, so we may add gravity sensors in the future,” he said. “Gravity is one of seven branches of physics that can see underground, but they still need to mature. Recent advances in gravity sensors could make ‘seeing’ underground even more detailed, and we will be closely watching those technology innovations as they evolve.”
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