Development Of A Robotic Bridge Maintenance System

Abstract

This paper describes the research and development of an automated paint and rust removal system for steel bridges. The system's ultimate objectives are to lessen human exposure to harmful and dangerous material (such as paint particles, asbestos, rust, and/or lead), free up workers from labor-intensive jobs, and minimize bridge maintenance expenses. The robot is equipped with many Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) detectors and a navigation control system that enable it to go around the bridge deck accurately and independently. This allows the robot to gather visual data and conduct NDE assessments. The suggested robotic system may
enable faster and more economical completion of the data collection and inspection of the bridge deck. For efficient bridge deck observing, a crack detection method is covered in depth and used to create the deck crack map. The robot gathers data on
ultrasonic surface waves (USW), impact-echo (IE), and electrical resistivity (ER).  Following processing, these data are utilized to produce maps of the bridge deck's corrosion, delamination, and cement elastic modulus. There includes a full discussion of the robot design process, main research topics, auxiliary technology, and the creation of systems. Included are a review of some important concerns and an overview of the research's current state.