Biologically Inspired Robotic System for Steel Bridge Condition Assessment

Funding: 2009: $145,000
2010: $140,000
2011: $135,000

Project Member(s): Liu, D., Waldron, K., Dissanayake, G.

Funding or Partner Organisation: NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (from 2012 RMS) (NSW Roads & Traffic Authority Partnership Fund)
Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage Projects)

Start year: 2010

Summary: Australia has thousands of steel bridges which form a key infrastructure supporting urban and rural communities. Inadequate maintenance is the common cause of bridge failures which are extremely expensive in terms of human life and cost. The outcomes of this research, a bio-inspired robotic system and enabling methodologies, will bring enormous benefits to the Australian community by significantly improving worker safety, greatly reducing costs and improving efficiency of bridge condition assessment. Australia will lead the world in developing autonomous systems for infrastructure condition assessment, and will gain significant economic benefits from commercialising these advanced technologies for a huge potential market world-wide.

Publications:

Pagano, D & Liu, D 2017, 'An approach for real-time motion planning of an inchworm robot in complex steel bridge environments', Robotica, vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 1280-1309.
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Quin, P, Paul, G & Liu, D 2017, 'Experimental Evaluation of Nearest Neighbor Exploration Approach in Field Environments.', IEEE Trans Autom. Sci. Eng., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 869-880.
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Paul, G, Quin, P, To, AWK & Liu, D 1970, 'A sliding window approach to exploration for 3D map building using a biologically inspired bridge inspection robot', 2015 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Technology in Automation, Control, and Intelligent Systems (CYBER), 2015 IEEE International Conference on CYBER Technology in Automation, Control, and Intelligent Systems (CYBER), IEEE, Shenyang, China, pp. 1097-1102.
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Paul, G, Quin, P, Yang, C-HJ & Liu, D 1970, 'Key feature-based approach for efficient exploration of structured environments.', ROBIO, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, IEEE, Zhuhai, China, pp. 90-95.
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Ward, P & Liu, D 1970, 'Design of a high capacity Electro Permanent Magnetic adhesion for climbing robots', 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), IEEE, Guangzhou, China, pp. 217-222.
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Keywords: bio-inspired climbing robot, infrastructure condition assessment, bridge inspection, supervised autonomous system

FOR Codes: Manufacturing Robotics and Mechatronics (excl. Automotive Mechatronics), Transport Engineering, Road Infrastructure and Networks, Machinery and Equipment not elsewhere classified, Rail Infrastructure and Networks, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing robotics, Machinery and equipment, Ground transport

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.