Biologically inspired robotic system for steel bridge condition assessment

澳大利亚有数以千计的钢桥，它们构成了支撑城市和农村社区的关键基础设施。定期检查是一项重要的工作，可以最大限度地减少桥梁故障的风险和相关的社区影响。该项目将开发一个机器人检查系统，该系统能够在结构上爬行，检查所有区域，获取基本信息并适当地将这些信息呈现给操作员，以促进有效的状况评估。该项目的成果将为在全球范围内将仿生机器人用于民用基础设施状况评估奠定基础，显著提高工人的安全，并极大地降低成本和提高检查过程的效率。

Australia has many thousands of steel bridges which form a key infrastructure supporting urban and rural communities. Periodic inspection is a vital undertaking that minimises risk of bridge failures and associated community impact. This project will develop a robotic inspection system capable of crawling over the structure, inspecting all areas, acquiring essential information and appropriately presenting these to a human operator to facilitate effective condition assessment. The project's outcomes will lay the foundation for the world-wide use of bio-inspired robots in civil infrastructure condition assessment, significantly increasing worker’ safety and greatly reducing the costs and improving the efficiency of the inspection process.