Methods, apparatus, and systems for facilitating compliance with marking specifications for dispensing marking material

Abstract

Control of locating equipment used by a locate technician to perform a locate and/or marking operation to detect and/or mark a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility at a work site is based at least in part on marking specifications (e.g., government-based regulations, industry-based recommended guidelines/best practices, standard operating procedures of locate companies and/or facility owners, and/or contractual obligations relating to marking operations). In various examples, control signals are generated to alert a locate technician when to start and stop dispensing of a marking material, or control signals are generated to automatically or semi-automatically control dispensing of the marking material by a marking device, so as to facilitate compliance with marking specifications.

1 . An apparatus for controlling a marking device used by a locate technician to perform a marking operation to mark a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility at a work site, the apparatus comprising:
 a memory to store processor-executable instructions; and   at least one processing unit communicatively coupled to the memory, wherein upon execution of the processor-executable instructions, the at least one processing unit:
 A) generates at least one control signal relating to dispensing of a marking material by the marking device based at least in part on:
 marking specifications that define one or more marking patterns to be applied on ground, pavement or other surface at the work site; 
 location information representative of a location of the marking device during the marking operation; and 
 actuation information representative of one or more actuations of the marking device to dispense the marking material.