Design and Implementation of CCRobot-II: a Palm-based Cable Climbing Robot for Cable-stayed Bridge Inspection

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

“…It is for this reason that different types of climbing and aerial robots have been used to facilitate these tasks. In particular, the versatility of the aerial robots has allowed their increased utilization for the inspection of the different parts of bridges, such as the inaccessible underside of the bridge decks, higher parts of the bridge beams and cables [40,49,[63][64][65][66][67]86]. Similarly, a number of different wheel-based and legged robots have also been used for inspecting concrete bridge decks, steel wires, concrete underside, and steel beams.…”

“…In recent decades, there has been an increased focus towards the development and usage of semi-autonomous and fully autonomous robots for the NDE and SHM of civil infrastructures in general and bridges in particular. A wide array of diverse robots have been developed ranging from climbing robots (e.g., legged robots, wheel-based sliding robots and crawler robots) [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ], and multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (e.g., quad-rotors and octo-rotors) [ 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 ] to unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) (e.g., advanced robotics and automation (ARA) lab robot, robotic crack inspection and mapping (ROCIM) , robotics-assisted bridge inspection tool (RABIT)) [ 45 , 47 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 ] and water-based robotic crafts (e.g., unmanned submersible vehicles (USVs), underwater marine vehicles (UMVs), underwater vehicles (UUVs)) [ 41 , 42 , 80 ].…”

“…A number of different robot platforms are designed for inspection activities for specific types of bridges (e.g., cantilever, arch, suspension, truss, cable-stayed, beam, girder and tied-arch bridges) [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 46 , 48 , 49 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 55 , 56 , 58 , 59 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 73 , 87 ]. In order to provide some level of insight regarding the different robotic solutions for bridge inspection, the proceeding discussion will focus on the taxonomy provided in Figure 6 , namely: (i) ground robots, (ii) aerial robots, and (iii) marine robots.…”

“…Many bridges are equipped with cables to provide support and load balancing across the different parts of the bridge. To provide the automatic maintenance and inspection of these parts of the bridges, a considerable amount of studies focuses towards the mechanical design and development of different cable climbing robots [ 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 63 , 64 ]. The use of bipedal and quadruped legged robots has also been proposed for the inspection of civil infrastructures in general and the vertical structures of bridges in particular [ 87 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 ].…”

“…legged robots, wheel-based sliding robots and crawler robots) [38][39][40][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62], and multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (e.g., quad-rotors and octo-rotors) [63][64][65][66][67][68][69] to unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) (e.g., advanced robotics and automation (ARA) lab robot, robotic crack inspection and mapping (ROCIM), robotics-assisted bridge inspection tool (RABIT)) [45,47,[70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79] and water-based robotic crafts (e.g., unmanned submersible vehicles (USVs), underwater marine vehicles (UMVs), underwater vehicles (UUVs)) [41,42,80]. Some of the recent studies have also focused towards developing hybrid robotic frameworks (e.g., wall-climbing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), robots capable of flying and crawling and other multi-rotor flying robots capable of latching on to specific parts of infrastructure that require inspection), which are able to provide multi-functional roles and capabilities for the different types of inspection activities [43,…”