There are nearly 56,000 defective bridges currently being used in the US and unsuspecting vehicles travel across them about 185 million time a day – but these structures could go at any moment. However, a team of researchers have designed a ‘robot bridge inspector’ that is said to cut down on the costs for inspections and is able to thoroughly check for corrosion and other faults in the structure with 96 percent accuracy. Called Seekur Jr, the autonomous machine is equipped with a camera for visual crack detection, ground penetrating radar for concrete rebar assessment and unique sensors for concrete corrosion.
The robot inspector was designed by a team of researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno, which they said will work alongside the road while do the checks, allowing traffic to keep moving on the road.
‘To have a robot move effectively along a narrow bridge deck, a skid-steering 4-wheel-drive robot model such as Seekur Jr mobile robot (from Omron Adept Technologies, Inc.) is used,’ the researchers shared in the study.
‘To collect data along a bridge deck, the robot needs to move from one end of the bridge to the other end.’
‘Then it needs to turn around and continue its movement until the whole bridge deck is covered.’
The robot was also made to be waterproof, making it suitable for inspecting bridges. Seekur Jr is the successor of the Seekur robot which is a holonomic, all-weather, outdoor robot platform for outdoor security, inspection and research.
‘The advantage of using this robot is that it is more versatile than its bigger version, Seekur, which had been used in other robotic systems,’ the team explained. ‘With a smaller form, the Seekur Jr. robot can manage to move in narrower environments.’
Above content is from the published article in the "Mail Online" on 5 May 2017. To read the full article, please visit here.
