Details:

Creators:
Yu, Tzuyang
Corporate Creators:
University of Massachusetts at Lowell
Contributors:
Singh, Caesar
Corporate Contributors:
United States. Department of Transportation. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
Subject/TRT Terms:
[+]
Autonomous Inspection Bridges Drone Aircraft Infrastructure Inspection And Monitoring Inspection Monitoring Railroads Remote Sensing Transportation Infrastructure Tunnels Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Sensing System
Resource Type:
Tech Report
Geographical Coverage:
United States
Abstract:
Managing a growing population of deteriorated transportation infrastructure

systems (i.e. bridges, railways, tunnels) is one of biggest challenges faced by the nation.

Traditional inspection and monitoring techniques (e.g., visual inspection, mechanical

sounding, rebound hammer, cover meter, electrical potential measurements, ultrasound,

ground penetrating radar) for bridges, railways, and tunnels require lane closure and are

labor intensive and time-consuming. Existing remote sensing techniques (e.g., LiDAR,

aerial photos) using fixed-wing aircraft are capable of conducting large-area inspection

but are constrained by viewing areas accessible only from above, at a large distance, and

are not capable of inspecting all areas of interest (e.g., bridge piers, bridge girder bottom,

and tunnel walls). Automated, low-cost, efficient inspection techniques for interrogating

critical components of bridges, railways, and tunnels are needed. The objective of this

project is to develop a system-level, decision-support unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

sensing system for the autonomous, efficient inspection of bridges, railways, and tunnels,

using radar, digital image correlation, and thermal sensors. The proposed UAV sensing

system represents the next generation of rapid, low-cost interrogation technology for

infrastructure inspection and monitoring of critical transportation infrastructure.

In this final report, major research achievements and findings from our conducted

tasks are summarized and reported. Additional technical details in our research tasks can

be found in submitted quarterly reports. The objective of this project is to develop an

unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system that can be used to autonomously interrogate

numerous areas on civil structures easily without requiring expensive, time consuming

aerial lifts or inconsistent visual inspections. The proposed sensing platform includes

innovative continuous wave imaging radar and digital image correlation to monitor

structures or quantify damage. This project represents the next generation of localized,

autonomous inspection and monitoring methods using robotic platform.


Format:
PDF
Funding:
OASRTRS-14-H-UML
Collection(s):
US Transportation Collection
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:6c63454a807706adba0f7f8fbb76886c1daee7fb6a1bd2d8a12e783ef427e292
Download URL:
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/32307/dot_32307_DS1.pdf
File Type:

Supporting Files

• No Additional Files

More +