Engineering Commons^™

Pooled-Fund Project No. Tpf-5(395), Genda Chen

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

The goals of the pooled-fund initiative are to engage closely with several state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) in the early stage of technology development at the INSPIRE University Transportation Center, and leverage the center resources to develop case studies, protocols, and guidelines that can be adopted by state DOTs for bridge inspection without adversely impacting traffic. The initiative involves the integration, field demonstration and documentation of a robotic system of structural crawlers, unmanned aerial vehicles, a multimodal unmanned vehicle, nondestructive devices, sensors, and data analytics. Depending on the interest of participating DOTs, the objectives of this initiative include, but are …

Vision-Based Non-Gps Uav Guidance For Bridge Inspection, Bo Shang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Uav-Based Smart Rock Localization For Determination Of Bridge Scour Depth, Haibin Zhang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

First Place Award in recognition of outstanding achievement in the 2020 Annual Meeting Graduate Student Poster Competition sponsored by INSPIRE University Transportation Center

Bridge Inspection Video Data Analysis For Data-Driven Asset Management, Muhammad Monjurul Karim

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Second Place Award in recognition of outstanding achievement in the 2020 Annual Meeting Graduate Student Poster Competition sponsored by INSPIRE University Transportation Center

Automatic Impact-Sounding Acoustic Inspection Of Concrete Structure, Jinglun Feng

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Experimental Investigation Of A Novel Smart Shear Key For Earthquake And Tsunami Mitigation, Xinzhe Yuan

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement Of Steel Bridge Members Using Mobile Sensors, Yu Otsuki

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Third Place Award in recognition of outstanding achievement in the 2020 Annual Meeting Graduate Student Poster Competition sponsored by INSPIRE University Transportation Center

Data-Driven Risk Assessment Of Bridges Subject To Corrosion And Scour, Yijian Zhang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Clamping Design For Bridge Inspection Robot Deployment Systems (Birds) Prototype Ii, Bo Shang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Bridge Resilience Assessment With Inspire Data, Iris Tien

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Robotic data collection, both automated and remote, will enable post-disaster assessment of bridge components where it would normally be difficult and potentially dangerous for manual inspection by field workers to do so.

This project aims to develop and validate a new framework that uses the data collected from the robotic exploration of infrastructure, particularly after a disaster, to assess the condition of bridges and prioritize these structures for repair. This will improve the resilience of the transportation system to disasters by targeting bridge repairs and enabling resources to be distributed more effectively across the system for more rapid recovery after …

Bridge Inspection Robot Deployment Systems (Birds), Bo Shang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Climbing robots for both concrete and steel bridges and UAVs are being developed to support bridge inspection with advanced evaluation technologies at the INSPIRE University Transportation Center. They are mostly applicable to large open areas with little or no obstacles. For I-shaped beams or girders, climbing along the cross section of these structural members is not a trial task. In particular, a climbing robot may not have a sufficient footprint to make a safe turn from the inner to outer face of a top or bottom flange. In this case, an unmanned vehicle is conceived to facilitate I-girder inspection and …

Mobile-Manipulating Uavs For Sensor Installation, Bridge Inspection And Maintenance, Paul Oh

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Mobile manipulating UAVs have great potential for bridge inspection and maintenance. Since 2002, the PI has developed UAVs that could fly through in-and-around buildings and tunnels. Collision avoidance in such cluttered near-Earth environments has been a key challenge. The advent of light-weight, computationally powerful cameras led to breakthroughs in SLAM even though SLAM-based autonomous aerial navigation around bridges remains an unsolved problem.

In 2007, the PI integrated a mobile manipulation function into UAVs, greatly extending the capabilities of UAVs from passive survey of environments with cameras to active interaction with environments using limbs. Mobile-manipulating UAVs have since been demonstrated to …

Climbing Robots With Automated Deployment Of Sensors And Nde Devices For Steel Bridge Inspection, Hung La

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

The PI was a research scientist/faculty at Rutgers University who successfully developed in 2014 a Robotic Assisted Bridge Inspection Tool (RABIT) for bridge deck inspections. Other bridge elements, such as girders and columns, or even underside of bridge decks are difficult to access and remain a challenge for efficient inspection. Like visual inspection, current practices for bridge maintenance are equally time consuming and expensive. Automation of simple maintenance actions such as bearing cleaning and concrete sealing with robots will lead to a leap forward to the next-generation strategy of bridge maintenance.

This project aims to develop and prototype automated climbing …

Autonomous Wall-Climbing Robots For Inspection And Maintenance Of Concrete Bridges, Jizhong Xiao

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Since 2002, the PI’s group has developed four generations of wall-climbing robots for NDE inspection of civil infrastructure. These robots combine the advantages of aerodynamic attraction and suction to achieve a desirable balance of strong adhesion and high mobility. They don’t require perfect sealing and can thus move on smooth and rough surfaces, such as brick, concrete, stucco, wood, glass, and metal. For example, Rise-Rover uses two drive modules to carry their middle compartment with payload up to 450 N. Ground penetrating radar (GPR)-Rover and Mini GPR-Rover are custom designed to carry a GSSI’s GPR antenna for subsurface defect detection …

Hyperspectral Imaging Analysis Of Steel Corrosion, Abdullah Alhaj

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

A Hybrid-Climbing Robot For Steel Bridge Inspection, Thanh Son Nguyen

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Human Collaborative Haptic-Based Mobile-Manipulating Uavs, Dongbin Kim

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Uav Aerodynamics Simulation: Model Building And Analysis, Pu Jiao

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Simulation Training And Control System For Bridge Inspection, Rahul Dubey

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Integrated Sensing System Of Fe-C Coated Long Period Fiber Gratings For Mass Loss Measurement Of Steel Bars With Strain And Temperature Compensation, Chuanrui Guo

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

A Training Framework Of Robotic Operation And Image Analysis For Decision-Making In Bridge Inspection And Preservation, Ruwen Qin

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Inspection and preservation of existing transportation infrastructure to extend their service life is an effective way of mitigating the pressure of steadily growing transportation demands on the aging infrastructure. Their current practice, though, represents one of the most costly operations in state departments of transportation.

The INSPIRE University Transportation Center will develop a remotely-controlled robotic platform that helps with these labor-intensive tasks and allows engineers to focus on decision-making processes. An important mission of INSPIRE is to leverage users’ capability of implementing, and interacting with, the robotic platform. Therefore, a long-term plan has been made to create a framework of …

Developing A Robotic Simulator And Video Games For Professional And Public Training, Sushil Louis

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Civil engineers are not educated with robotics. They need to be trained on the job with effective tools. The most recent simulation trainer that the PI has built is currently being used by the United States Navy to train surface warfare officers in decision making under stress. In a crowded in-port environment, the crew on a ship’s bridge is trained to probe and identify suspicious boat behavior within the port’s traffic pattern. Officers in charge of the simulation training lesson use software for high-level control of dozens of other ships, boats, and aircrafts that quickly react and adapt to the …

Quantitative Bridge Inspection Ratings Using Autonomous Robotic Systems, Anil Agrawal

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

The 2001 study sponsored by FHWA raised serious concern on the consistency and reliability of visual inspection. Although consistent ratings can be obtained with a good QA/QC program, based on a recent study by the PI, the concern for reliability of defect detection remains. With the adoption of the recent AASHTO Manuel for Bridge Element Inspection, the new inspection approach not only requires rating for bridge elements, but also the location and extent of deterioration. Since autonomous robotic systems generate an enormous amount of inspection data, deducing from the data to a simple rating along with the location and extent …

3d Microwave Camera For Concrete Delamination And Steel Corrosion Detection, R. Zoughi

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Corrosion of embedded steel reinforcement in concrete leads to concrete cracking and delamination, followed by increased salt and moisture permeation and further damage. Invisibility of the embedded rebar in combination with physical inaccessibility in elevated bridges presents a challenge in the assessment of RC bridge elements. Wideband (3D) microwave synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging techniques that can be integrated into a UAV offer a practical solution to overcome this challenge.

This project aims to develop and optimize a 3D microwave camera for bridge inspection on a UAV platform, quantify its performance for steel corrosion evaluation and concrete delamination detection in …

Hyperspectral Image Analysis For Mechanical And Chemical Properties Of Concrete And Steel Surfaces, Genda Chen

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from approximately 400 to 700 nm. A hyperspectral camera can extend the wavelength to as high as 2500 nm. This extension will allow engineers to find objects, identify materials, and detect processes on structural surface, which cannot be done with visual inspection.

This project aims to develop an open-source catalogue of concrete and steel surfaces and their spectral/spatial features (discoloration, characteristic wavelength, roughness, texture, shape, etc.), extract spatial/spectral features of hyperspectral images, and develop/train a multi-class classification or regression classifier through machine learnings (supervised and/or semi-supervised), and validate the classifier as a …

Autonomous Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement By A Magnet-Wheeled Robot, Yang Wang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

A wireless sensing device recently developed by PI Wang’s group has demonstrated various structural sensing capabilities for bridge applications. In the meantime, a latest robot platform developed by Dr. La’s group at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) demonstrates promising performance navigating on steel bridge members. Marrying the two state-of-the-art developments, this project will produce a magnet-wheeled robot capable of autonomous nondestructive measurement on steel bridge structures. Both laboratory and field validations will be performed.

This project will integrate advanced wireless sensing technologies to the UNR robot platform. At first, the functionality of ultrasonic thickness measurement will be developed on …

In-Line Long Period Grating And Brillouin Scattering Fiber Optic Sensors For Strain, Temperature, Chloride Concentration, And Steel Mass Loss Measurement In Bridge Applications, Chuanrui Guo

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Corrosion is the main reason for costly maintenance of aging transportation infrastructure in the U.S. Since 2008, the PI’s group has developed long period fiber grating (LPFG) sensors for point strain and steel mass loss measurements. When attached on a steel bar, a LPFG sensor doped with nano iron/silica particles and polyurethane can monitor the corrosion process of steel. However, the coating of particles with polyurethane was not robust. In addition, chloride concentration is important for the prediction of early corrosion in practice. Compared to grating sensors, Brillouin scattering based sensors have lower spatial resolution but offer a cost-effective solution …

2020 Technical Program, Inspire - University Transportation Center

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

INSPIRE University Transportation Center 2020 Annual Meeting
August 3-4, 2020