A Review of Advanced Bridge Inspection Technologies Based on Robotic Systems and Image Processing

To ensure safety of bridges, it is critical to inspect and assess physical and functional conditions regularly. Presently, most highway bridges in the U.S. are inspected visually. However, this method of inspection is often influenced by the bridge inspector's knowledge and experience. So, reliability and accuracy of inspection results may be problematic. To solve such problems, an extensive number of robotics systems and image processing techniques for bridge inspection methods have been proposed. These robotics systems and image processing techniques are used to measure various bridge conditions, such as apparent damage, displacement and dynamic characteristics. This paper provides a comprehensive review of robotics systems and image processing technologies used in bridge inspection.