Excavators, trenchers, and boring equipment hitting underground utilities cause serious damage. Accidents such as gas explosions and cut electric power and sewer lines result in the deaths and costly damages. The backhoe excavator is the most widely used piece of equipment for excavation today.

Developmentof "smart" attachment mounting onto the backhoe for searching underground utilities is a great promising innovative technology. The goal of the BUDS (Buried Utility Detection System) Consortium is to advance such a technology to a state where it can be manufactured and sold on the market. Present members include BellSouth and 3M.