Design and implementation of an autonomous robot for steel bridge inspection

Pham, Nhan H.; La, Hung Manh

doi:10.1109/allerton.2016.7852280

Cited by 34 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…When the robot climbs on top of an inclined surface ( Fig. 8(a)), based on our previous work [36], we can obtain the magnetic adhesion force: F m = P sin φ µ − P cos φ. Hence, the sliding failure can be avoided if the magnetic force satisfies the following condition:…”

Section: B Sliding Failure Investigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a Steel Bridge Climbing Robot

Nguyen

2019

2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

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Motivated by a high demand for automated inspection of civil infrastructure, this work presents a new design and development of a tank-like robot for structural health monitoring. Unlike most existing magnetic wheeled mobile robot designs, which may be suitable for climbing on flat steel surface, our proposed tank-like robot design uses reciprocating mechanism and roller-chains to make it capable of climbing on different structural shapes (e.g., cylinder, cube) with coated or non-coated steel surfaces. The proposed robot is able to transition from one surface to the other (e.g., from flat surface to curving surface). Taking into account of several strict considerations (including tight dimension, efficient adhesion and climbing flexibility) to adapt with various shapes of steel structures, a prototype tank-like robot incorporating multiple sensors (hall-effects, sonars, inertial measurement unit and camera), has been developed. Rigorous analysis of robot kinematics, adhesion force, sliding failure and turn-over failure has been conducted to demonstrate the stability of the proposed design. Mechanical and magnetic force analysis together with sliding/turn-over failure investigation can serve as an useful framework for designing various steel climbing robots in the future. Experimental results and field deployments confirm the adhesion and climbing capability of the developed robot.

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Section: B Sliding Failure Investigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a Steel Bridge Climbing Robot

Nguyen

2019

2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

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“…36 Neodymium magnet cylinders embedded in each wheel can create magnetic force up to 14 kg/wheel if there is no air gap between the magnets and the steel surface [21]. However, each wheel is covered by a thin layer of cloth to enhance the friction with steel surface, hence the magnetic force created is reduced which is approximately 6 kg/wheel.…”

Section: Mechanical Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When moving on steel surfaces, there are problems needed to be addressed in order to maintain stability of the robot which are sliding and turn-over failure. Our previous work [21] shows that in order to avoid two types of failure, the magnetic force created by all wheels should satisfy rd International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC 2016) 2.237 ; 2 , (1) where is the total magnetic force, is the robot's weight ( where is robot's mass and is gravitational acceleration), is the distance between the center of mass to steel surface, and is the distance between front and rear wheels.…”

Section: Mechanical Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visual and 3D Mapping for Steel Bridge Inspection Using a Climbing Robot

Pham¹,

La²,

Ha³

et al. 2016

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (IAARC)

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-There are over six hundred thousand bridges in the U.S. which require great amount of human effort along with expensive and specialized equipment for maintenance. Current bridge inspections are manually performed by inspectors which are inefficient and unsafe. This paper presents visual and three dimensional (3D) structure inspection for steel bridges and steel structures using the developed climbing robot. The robot can move freely on steel surface, carry several sensors, and collect data then send to the ground station for real-time monitoring as well as further processing. Steel surface image stitching and 3D map building are conducted to provide a current condition of the structure.

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“…In addition, manual data collection with NDE sensors can lead to errors in the collection process while workers collect data from different areas and record the location and data. These issues with the manual inspection of civil infrastructure lead to an increase in the need for a fully autonomous robotic system for civil infrastructure inspection (Pham & La, ; Pham et al., ). Such a robotic system could reduce the required training for inspection workers, reducing safety requirements, and reducing the cost of civil infrastructure inspection.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nondestructive evaluation sensor fusion with autonomous robotic system for civil infrastructure inspection

Gibb

et al. 2018

Journal of Field Robotics

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Civil infrastructure inspection is crucial to maintaining the quality of that infrastructure, which has a great impact on the economy. Performing this inspection is costly work that requires workers to be trained on how to use varying technologies, which can be error prone when performed manually and can result in damage to the infrastructure in some cases. For this reason, nondestructive evaluation (NDE) sensors are preferred for civil infrastructure inspection as they can perform the necessary inspection without damaging the infrastructure. In this paper, we develop a fully autonomous robotic system capable of real-time data collection and quasi-real-time data processing. The robotic system is equipped with several NDE sensors that allow for a sensor fusion method to be developed that successfully minimizes inspection time while performing adequate inspection of areas that require more in-depth data to be collected. A detailed discussion of the inspection framework developed for this robotic system, and the dual navigation modes for both indoor and outdoor autonomous navigation is presented. The developed robotic system is deployed to inspect several infrastructures (e.g., parking garages, bridges) at and near by the University of Nevada, Reno campus. K E Y W O R D Sconcrete inspection, field robots, non-destructive inspection SUPPORTING INFORMATIONAdditional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of the article.How to cite this article: Gibb S, La HM, Le T, Nguyen L, Schmid R, Pham H. Nondestructive evaluation sensor fusion with autonomous robotic system for civil infrastructure inspection.

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Design and implementation of an autonomous robot for steel bridge inspection

Cited by 34 publications

References 23 publications

Development of a Steel Bridge Climbing Robot

Development of a Steel Bridge Climbing Robot

Visual and 3D Mapping for Steel Bridge Inspection Using a Climbing Robot

Nondestructive evaluation sensor fusion with autonomous robotic system for civil infrastructure inspection

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