Wireless inspection of structures aided by robots

Dryver R. Huston; Brian Esser; Geoff Gaida; Steven W. Arms; Christopher P. Townsend

doi:10.1117/12.435587

3 August 2001 Wireless inspection of structures aided by robots

Dryver R. Huston, Brian Esser, Geoff Gaida, Steven W. Arms, Christopher P. Townsend

Proceedings Volume 4337, Health Monitoring and Management of Civil Infrastructure Systems; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.435587
Event: 6th Annual International Symposium on NDE for Health Monitoring and Diagnostics, 2001, Newport Beach, CA, United States

Abstract

The inspection of structures by humans is often hampered by safety and accessibility concerns. One method of reducing human inspection activities is to use remotely located sensors, such as strain gages and accelerometers. Running cables to power the sensors and transmit data can be expensive and inconvenient. This paper describes a development effort in which a robot is used to power and interrogate remotely placed sensors. The sensors are powered by a noncontact inductive system, which eliminates the need for batteries or interconnecting lead wires. The data are sent by a wireless connection back to a central data logger and processor. The power demands of telemetering data are decreased by close proximity of robot. The system utilizes existing microminiature, multichannel, wireless programmable Addressable Sensing Modules (ASM's) to sample data from a wide variety of sensors. Demonstration style robots are built and tested with ASMs in simple tabletop design, and a more robust task specific I-beam crawler robot for structural application.

Citation Download Citation

Dryver R. Huston, Brian Esser, Geoff Gaida, Steven W. Arms, and Christopher P. Townsend "Wireless inspection of structures aided by robots", Proc. SPIE 4337, Health Monitoring and Management of Civil Infrastructure Systems, (3 August 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.435587

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