Robotic Infrastructures for Infrastructures Robotic Inspections

In the world, there are hundreds of automation devices and equipment on the bridges for automatic inspection and/or monitoring. These range from simple travellers to highly complex robots, all of which require infrastructure such as rails, cables, beams, and tracks to operate safely and autonomously. Moreover, if the design of inspection robots is a case-specific compromise between competing needs for sophisticated inspection sensing and for flexible locomotion in challenging field environments, that infrastructure could be even more complex. This complexity necessitates creating a contact point between the civil structure and the advanced device, bridging two domains with significantly different measurement tolerances. This detail can impact the movement accuracy of mobile systems, transforming a structured environment into an unstructured one. Consequently, this can lead to overly complicated navigation controls or incorrect positioning of the inspection probes. To address these limitations, either a human operator must remain involved, which reduces the benefits of automation, or innovative solutions must be introduced in autonomous systems. Therefore, this work aims to define the most influential parameters and provide potential solutions to improve the efficiency and accuracy of infrastructure inspection and maintenance.