Marking apparatus having environmental sensors and operations sensors for underground facility marking operations, and associated methods and systems

An apparatus for performing a marking operation to mark on ground, pavement, or other surface a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility, the apparatus comprising:

• an actuator to dispense a marking material to form at least one locate mark on the ground, pavement or other surface to mark the presence or the absence of the at least one underground facility;
• a memory including processor-executable instructions stored thereon;
• at least one input device to provide marking information regarding the marking operation, the at least one input device configured to sense at least one environmental condition of an environment in which the apparatus is located and provide an output signal indicative of the at least one environmental condition;
• and
• a processor configured to execute the processor executable instruction stored in the memory, the processor communicatively coupled to the memory, the actuator, and the at least one input device to receive the output signal indicative of the at least one environmental condition, wherein upon execution of the processor-executable instructions stored in the memory, the processor compares the output signal indicative of the at least one environmental condition to at least one target value or range of target values representing the at least one environmental condition and determines whether an out-of-tolerance environmental condition is present during the marking operation, wherein if the processor determines that the out-of-tolerance condition is present during the marking operation, the processor does at least one of:
• logs an out-of-tolerance indication into an electronic record stored in the memory;
• controls at least one output device of the marking apparatus to generate an alert;
• and
• disables actuator.