Simulation of a Hybrid Robot for Bridge Inspection

In this paper, simulation tests for a hybrid inspection robot are addressed. The proposed system can be used for indoor and outdoor surveys, and thanks to its compactness and ability in overpassing obstacles, it has been applied for planning the inspection of the deck of railways or highways bridges. Recently, robots have been used for substituting personnel in dangerous or unsafe operations. Referring to structures and infrastructure inspection, either autonomous or tele-operated systems can be used for monitoring purposes for making secure the access to manholes of decks, and box girder bridges. Indeed, a hybrid robot can be used for the inspection in such environments, which are dangerous, difficult, or almost impossible to access. Particularly, the robot must be able to carry suitable sensors for inspection, as well as having the ability in overpassing or circumnavigating obstacles, being compact and maneuverable. In this paper, we report a survey of built bridges in Slovakia with main problems that have to be considered and first simulation results for the hybrid rover developed and equipped with suitable sensors to accomplish the task of the inspection in the context of a selected case of study. The inspection of bridges is becoming nowadays an issue for the security of critical infrastructures, not only at European level, but worldwide.