Locating and understanding the hidden infrastructure beneath our cities has long been one of the most complex challenges in construction and design. Today, advances in Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), radar tomography, electromagnetic locating, and GPS-integrated mapping are turning Subsurface Utility Mapping (SUM) into a smarter, safer, and more precise discipline.
In this session, experts will explore how remote sensing technologies are transforming underground utility detection—from uncovering undocumented assets to integrating high-resolution 3D models into digital twins and city-scale datasets. Through real-world examples, attendees will gain insight into the tools, workflows, and best practices that prevent costly strikes, improve compliance, and create a single source of truth for future infrastructure projects.
Whether you’re an engineer, contractor, or municipal planner, you’ll walk away with practical strategies for scanning before digging, interpreting results, and making data-driven decisions that protect both your people and your projects.
The following presentations will be shared in this session:
Beneath the Surface, Uncover the Unseen: Underground Utility Scanning Insights
Presented by John Niles, Accenture
This presentation is intended to be a deep dive into the world beneath our feet. Utility strikes represent a $30 billion problem, yet technology remains obscure. In this insightful session, we’ll explore the critical role underground utility scanning plays in modern construction, infrastructure planning, and damage prevention. Using real-world examples and advanced geophysical methods—such as Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), electromagnetic locating, GPS-integrated mapping, and Reality Capture. We’ll examine how technology uncovers hidden infrastructure with precision and safety.
Designed for contractors, engineers, project managers, and municipal planners alike, the session will explain how utility scanning works, why it is essential before breaking ground, and how to interpret and integrate scanning results into digital twins and city models. It will highlight the fundamentals of utility detection technologies, common field challenges, effective pre-excavation planning practices, and the ways accurate utility mapping supports safety, compliance, and cost control. Prepare to uncover what others overlook—and learn how scanning before digging protects both your project and your people.
Integrating GPR and Lidar for Comprehensive Above- and Below-Ground Highway Mapping
Presented by Sahar Kamalou, Oregon State Univerisity
The precise measurement of highway geometry has implications in the management of traffic operations, roadway safety, and roadway infrastructure improvements. While traditional methods of field surveying are both labor-intensive and time-consuming, further exacerbated in long roadway corridors, this research utilizes lidar technology. Lidar has been proven to effectively capture detailed geometric data from highways; however, the size and complexity of lidar data underscore the impractical nature of manually processing its datasets. To overcome this challenge, we developed an automated toolbox that extracts critical geometric characteristics through the fusion of lidar and trajectory. The toolbox has proven its ability to identify both horizontal and vertical curve locations, and their key characteristics such as curve length, radius, and deflection angle. Furthermore, it can extract roadway cross-sections, superelevation and cross-slopes without any manual operations of the datasets. Proven to generate accurate roadway geometry variables at surface level analysis, the research team also integrated subsurface information by combining Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) data. This additional development enabled a combined analysis of surface and subsurface highway feature extraction in a single unified workflow. The developed toolbox can support transportation agencies in highway geometric assessment, improving decision-making for maintenance, reconstruction, and future highway infrastructure analysis.
Looking Under the Surface: Geospatial Strategies for Collecting Underground Utility Data
Presented by Andrew Kuder, and Dabney Langhorne, NV5
Knowing where utilities are located and having them in an easily accessible and updatable geodatabase seems like a must-have for any organization looking to maintain, improve, and grow their physical footprint. However, existing documentation, such as construction drawings or As-Builts, do not always paint a comprehensive or accurate picture of existing utilities. This is where utility asset collection becomes invaluable. Our Utility Asset Collection team has been providing utility collections to DoD Entities for nearly a decade. With over 500 DoD installations collected, our team has developed a comprehensive and easily deployable workflow for creating a full, updateable GIS product that helps with both site awareness and safety. This presentation focuses on how to leverage document research as well as industry standard electromagnetic and ground-penetrating radar locating techniques with high accuracy GPS collection to identify new and existing subsurface utility features. It will also demonstrate how to turn that collected data into an updateable geodatabase that includes detailed attribution and photo documentation.
Uncovering Hidden Infrastructure: Transforming Utility Data Collection and Mapping with Remote Sensing Technology
Presented by John Lloyd, DGT Associates
Locating and mapping the hidden networks beneath our streets has long challenged designers, engineers, and asset owners. But today’s remote sensing advancements, particularly radar tomography and wide-array Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) systems, are transforming Subsurface Utility Mapping (SUM) into a faster, safer, and more accurate discipline. These technologies enable high-resolution 3D imaging, even in dense urban environments. From reducing safety risks to uncovering undocumented utilities and creating a single source of truth for future projects, attendees will gain insight into how recent innovations in technology are driving smarter infrastructure decisions and improving project outcomes.
