A multi-functional inspection robot for civil infrastructure evaluation and maintenance

Abstract

Satisfactory operation of civil infrastructure is of critical importance to an economy. In order to maintain performance, infrastructure needs to be properly maintained. Inspecting infrastructure is inherently labor-intensive work and costly. In this paper, we propose a solution to cost-effective infrastructure inspection by developing a multi-functional inspection robot. The robot is equipped with several state-of-the-art non-destructive evaluation (NDE) sensors to perform inspection. The robot is able to perform selected inspection methods in certain areas based on multiple sensor data fusion. With this, the overall inspection time is reduced, which in turn reduces maintenance cost. An inspection framework based on multiple NDE data sensor fusion is proposed. Detailed discussions include robot design, robot navigation and sensor data fusion.