Monitoring Kingston's Third Crossing Bridge

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Bridges are critical infrastructure assets that connect transportation networks for the delivery of goods and services and are vital links for first responders. To ensure that bridges remain in safe operating condition they should be inspected regularly, a task that has traditionally been conducted visually, which has raised questions about their consistency and repeatability. These inspections are also expensive, and typically require a mobile lift to access the side/underside of a bridge and the temporary closure to traffic. Consequently, there is a growing demand to innovate the way bridges are inspected to improve the quality, reduce costs, and ensure public safety. The goal of this research partnership is to leverage the relationship between the City of Kingston, Hatch Ltd., and Queen's University to advance the state-of-the-art in innovative and cost-effective solutions to monitor the condition of bridge infrastructure. The project will train 3 HQP (2 MASc and 1 PDF) on an interdisciplinary research team where they will develop relevant technical and professional skills. The research will: (1) develop a novel low-cost sensor network to monitor bridge bearing and expansion joint movement, (2) to develop an autonomous UAV system that navigates around a bridge and maps key features necessary for bridge bearing condition assessment, and (3) to implement and test these systems on Kingston's Third Crossing bridge. The use of sensors and robots for bridge inspection presents a number of advantages when compared to traditional human inspection: (1) barriers associated with access are eliminated, (2) improved quality and reliability, (3) potential for consistent catalogued data collection over the service life of a bridge, and (4) reduced traffic disruptions and delays. Innovating our ability to monitor critical infrastructure assets is of great importance and the expected project outcomes will have social, economic, and environmental benefits for Canada.