Development of an autonomous bridge deck inspection robotic system

Abstract

The threat to safety of aging bridges has been recognized as a critical concern to the general public due to the poor condition of many bridges in the U.S. Currently, the bridge inspection is conducted manually, and it is not efficient to identify bridge condition deterioration in order to facilitate implementation of appropriate maintenance or rehabilitation procedures. In this paper, we report a new development of the autonomous mobile robotic system for bridge deck inspection and evaluation. The robot is integrated with several nondestructive evaluation (NDE) sensors and a navigation control algorithm to allow it to accurately and autonomously maneuver on the bridge deck to collect visual images and conduct NDE measurements. The developed robotic system can reduce the cost and time of the bridge deck data collection and inspection. For efficient bridge deck monitoring, the crack detection algorithm to build the deck crack map is presented in detail. The impact-echo (IE), ultrasonic surface waves (USW) and electrical resistivity (ER) data collected by the robot are analyzed to generate the delamination, concrete elastic modulus, corrosion maps of the bridge deck, respectively. The presented robotic system has been successfully deployed to inspect numerous bridges in more than ten different states in the U.S.

Bridge inspection: human performance, unmanned aerial systems and automation

“…La et al equipped the RABIT with an autonomous system for deck inspection using impact-echo, ultrasonic, and electrical resistivity [26]. The system was able to navigate autonomously on a bridge deck, detecting cracks and delamination and evaluating the concrete modulus.…”

A semi-autonomous mobile robot for bridge inspection

“…In the very recent (2017) application depicted in Ref. [25], a computer vision-based method is implemented to detect surface crack on stitched images by combining several sensors (impact-echo, ultrasonic surface waves, and electrical resistivity). A review about Vision-Based Inspection of Large Concrete Structures from 2014 by Koch et al in Ref.…”

Review of Non-Destructive Civil Infrastructure Evaluation for Bridges: State-of-the-Art Robotic Platforms, Sensors and Algorithms

“…Out of the $14.3 billion expenditure sanctioned for the maintenance of existing bridges and the construction of new bridges in 2010, $12.8 billion was dedicated towards the maintenance of existing bridges [6], which shows that a considerable portion of annually allocated funds are being diverted for the maintenance of bridges. A number of different factors contribute towards the partial or total destruction of bridges, ranging from design errors and construction defects to environmental degradation, scour, flood, collision and overloading [7,8]. The impact of bridge destruction and collapse far exceeds the overall material and financial costs associated with the bridge construction, as it also includes the various direct and indirect costs, which include, but are not limited to, the loss of lives, user delays, planning for alternate routes, along with the green-house gas emissions linked to detours and delays in traffic [7,[9][10][11].…”