NRI: Collaborative Research: Minimally Invasive Robotic Non-Destructive Evaluation and Rehabilitation for Bridge Decks (Bridge-MINDER)

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Bridges are critical components of modern transportation infrastructure. Bridges deteriorate over time as a result of material aging, excessive use and overloading, environmental conditions, inadequate maintenance, and deficiencies in inspection and evaluation. Building on the recent advances in robotics and automation technologies, the objective of this project is to develop a novel Minimally Invasive robotic Non-Destructive Evaluation and Rehabilitation for bridge decks. The project develops new robotic system, algorithms and control schemes for sustainable civil infrastructure, including (1) development of a novel robotics-assisted in-traffic system for highly-efficient, safety-guaranteed bridge deck inspection and diagnosis; (2) development of a new robotic rehabilitation system for delivering fast, cost-effective, minimally invasive repair and maintenance for bridge decks; (3) a human-in-the-loop robotic coordination for minimally traffic interference; and (4) experimental platforms and field performance evaluation for the proposed system. The project also provides insights to advance real time scene understanding, multiple robot coordination, and human-robot collaboration in complex robotic systems. If successful, this project can drastically reduce bridge maintenance cost and mitigate negative impact caused by closing the bridge traffic flow under traditional bridge inspection and repair. The project outcomes, including source code, datasets, and publications, are to be shared among research community and the general public. The project also includes a number of integrated research and education programs to attract students from underrepresented groups into engineering and involve students into robotics research.