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Design and Development of a Multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System for Bridge Inspection

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Intelligent Robotics and Applications (ICIRA 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9834))

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Abstract

To prevent the occurrence of bridge structural failure, regular bridge inspections are required to find the defects of bridges. Traditional detection methods are mainly carried out manually, which are cumbersome and unsafe. The objective of this study is to develop an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for bridge inspection in a fully autonomous manner. In view of the characteristics of the bridge environment and detection principle, a hexarotor frame with an upward camera gimbal is specially designed. Complete control system, sensor system, and image processing system are integrated into the system on the Robot Operation System (ROS). In addition, position estimation and obstacle detection with multi-sensor fusion technique are proposed for obstacle avoidance, human-friendly control flying under the bridge environment without Global Position System (GPS). Compared with traditional bridge inspection method, UAVs will not be limited to space, which will simplify the inspection process, improve the inspection efficiency, guarantee personnel safety, and reduce the incidence of high-risk job accidents.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the special development fund of Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone (No.201411-PD-JQ-B108-009) and Open Foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control (No. GZKF-201510).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Jie Chen, Junjie Wu, Gang Chen, Wei Dong & Xinjun Sheng

  2. State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, Zhejiang, China

    Wei Dong

Authors
  1. Jie Chen
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  2. Junjie Wu
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  3. Gang Chen
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  4. Wei Dong
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  5. Xinjun Sheng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xinjun Sheng .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tokyo Metropolitan University , Tokyo, Japan

    Naoyuki Kubota

  2. Kyushu University , Fukuoka, Japan

    Kazuo Kiguchi

  3. University of Portsmouth , Portsmouth, United Kingdom

    Honghai Liu

  4. Tokyo Metropolitan University , Tokyo, Japan

    Takenori Obo

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Chen, J., Wu, J., Chen, G., Dong, W., Sheng, X. (2016). Design and Development of a Multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System for Bridge Inspection. In: Kubota, N., Kiguchi, K., Liu, H., Obo, T. (eds) Intelligent Robotics and Applications. ICIRA 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9834. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43506-0_44

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43506-0_44

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-43505-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-43506-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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