Design and Implementation of Articulated Rail Robot for Bridge Bottom Inspection

To solve the problems such as high safety risk, low accessibility and inspection blind spots in bridge bottom inspection, a robot system for automatic inspection of wide-width bridge bottom was developed. The robot system, with the ability of autonomous configuration adaptation, consists of a deformable articulated long span rail and a wheeled inspection vehicle. According to the cross-section characteristics of the bridge, a long rail with deformable configuration is articulated by a sequence of modular rail modules. The long rail is driven to form a conformal bridge cross section characteristics ridged structure by two cables, which are actuated by a high-torque density motor. A wheeled inspection robot equipped with a high-definition camera moves along the rigid structure for inspection operation and image transmission. By designing a remote motion control and communication system, remote control and sampling ability is realized. The test results show that the robot have strong adaptability, remote control and inspection ability.