Control Framework for a Hybrid-steel Bridge Inspection Robot

TL;DR

This paper presents a control framework enabling a steel bridge inspection robot to autonomously navigate and switch between configurations using 3D point clouds, reducing human intervention during inspections.

Contribution

A novel control system framework allowing autonomous switching between mobile and inch-worm configurations based on surface analysis for bridge inspection robots.

Findings

Successful autonomous navigation on steel bridges

Effective switching between robot configurations

Demonstrated performance in real-world experiments

Abstract

Autonomous navigation of steel bridge inspection robots is essential for proper maintenance. The majority of existing robotic solutions for bridge inspection require human intervention to assist in the control and navigation. In this paper, a control system framework has been proposed for a previously designed ARA robot [1], which facilitates autonomous real-time navigation and minimizes human involvement. The mechanical design and control framework of ARA robot enables two different configurations, namely the mobile and inch-worm transformation. In addition, a switching control was developed with 3D point clouds of steel surfaces as the input which allows the robot to switch between mobile and inch-worm transformation. The surface availability algorithm (considers plane, area, and height) of the switching control enables the robot to perform inch-worm jumps autonomously. Themobiletransformationallows the robot to move on continuous steel surfaces and perform visual inspection of steel bridge structures. Practical experiments on actual steel bridge structures highlight the effective performance of ARA robot with the proposed control framework for autonomous navigation during a visual inspection of steel bridges.