IN Brief:
- Network Plus has agreed a multiyear rollout covering more than 200 excavators.
- RodRadar’s 30cm bucket detects buried utilities while excavation is taking place.
- The deployment will test whether machine-integrated detection can reduce strikes at national fleet scale.
Network Plus is beginning a national rollout of RodRadar’s Live Dig Radar technology across a repair and maintenance fleet of more than 200 excavators.
The multiyear programme will introduce ground-penetrating radar directly into digging buckets, giving operators visual and audible warnings when the system identifies a buried utility during excavation.
Network Plus maintains and constructs water, wastewater, energy, and transport infrastructure for asset owners including Severn Trent Water, Cadent Gas, National Grid, and UK Power Networks. The contractor operates through more than 95 depots and satellite locations across the UK.
Machinetech, RodRadar’s exclusive UK and Ireland distributor, introduced the system and will support installation, training, and technical deployment. Field trials preceded the decision to move into fleet-wide use.
The rollout includes a Type 0 LDR Excavate bucket developed for congested urban work. At 30cm wide, the attachment is intended for smaller excavators operating around shallow services in roads, footways, verges, and restricted utility sites.
Ground-penetrating radar is embedded within the bucket rather than used solely as a separate survey tool before excavation. The equipment scans as the machine digs, while software classifies signals and provides immediate alerts in the cab.
The technology is designed to identify electricity, gas, water, sewer, fibre, and other buried pipes or cables. Detection performance will still depend on ground conditions, depth, material, moisture, orientation, congestion, and the physical characteristics of each utility.
Machine-integrated radar does not replace preconstruction information. Plans, service records, safe-dig enquiries, electromagnetic locating, ground-penetrating radar surveys, visual inspection, trial holes, and controlled excavation remain part of the wider process.
The system adds another layer at the point where the risk becomes immediate. Underground records may be incomplete, out of date, or shown only at an approximate position, while a service can diverge from its recorded route, change depth, or sit within a congested group of assets that is difficult to interpret from surface detection alone.
Recent work to align LSBUD’s enquiry service with the National Underground Asset Register is improving the information available before work begins. Live radar extends that process into the excavation itself by checking the ground as the bucket approaches buried infrastructure.
Utility strikes can injure workers, interrupt services, damage plant, close roads, delay programmes, and trigger extensive emergency work. Direct repair costs may represent only a small part of the final impact once traffic management, customer disruption, lost productivity, investigation, and regulatory consequences are included.
Scaling the system across more than 200 machines gives Network Plus an opportunity to move beyond isolated demonstrations. Data can be gathered across different soil types, regions, excavator classes, utilities, operators, and work categories to establish where performance remains consistent and where additional controls are required.
Operator acceptance will influence the outcome. Alerts must be understandable and timely without creating so many false indications that users lose confidence or work around the system.
Training needs to explain both capability and limitation. An operator who treats the radar as an absolute guarantee may dig too aggressively, while one who sees repeated unexplained signals may begin to disregard genuine warnings.
Maintenance will become part of fleet management because a bucket is exposed to impact, abrasion, mud, water, vibration, and repeated attachment changes. Sensors, cables, displays, software, and calibration require inspection regimes that fit normal plant servicing rather than creating a separate process that is difficult to sustain.
The commercial assessment will include avoided incidents, reduced exploratory work, productivity, insurance experience, downtime, and client requirements. A system that prevents a small number of high-consequence strikes may justify its cost before routine time savings are considered.
Evidence will need to distinguish correlation from prevention. A low strike rate can reflect improved planning, experienced operators, easier ground, or fewer high-risk jobs as well as the technology itself, making consistent incident reporting and near-miss data essential.
The deployment also reflects the evolution of construction plant into a mobile data platform. Cameras, machine control, proximity systems, telematics, weighing, geofencing, and radar increasingly sit alongside the hydraulic functions of an excavator.
Plant procurement is consequently moving beyond comparisons of size and power towards assessments of information, safety support, connectivity, software, and lifecycle service. Fleet owners must also consider data ownership, compatibility, updates, and the availability of trained technicians.
No sensor removes the need for competence or controlled digging practice. Machine assistance is most effective when it reinforces a clear method, accurate records, and disciplined supervision rather than compensating for weak planning.
Network Plus will now test that combination at fleet scale. The outcome could influence how utility contractors specify excavators and buckets for urban repair work, particularly where dense service networks leave little margin between routine excavation and a costly strike.
