TIER 1 UNIVERSITY TRANSPORTATION CENTER (UTC) Sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology in the U.S. Department of Transportation
INSPECTING AND PRESERVING INFRASTRUCTURE THROUGH ROBOTIC EXPLORATION VOL. 6 | ISSUE 2 | FALL 2022 INSPIRE-UTC Biannual Publication
In this issue: Director's Message News Field Application Research Technology Transfer Outreach Upcoming Events Awarded in December of 2016 by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the five-year INSPIRE UTC is a Tier 1 University Transportation Center with a research priority of preserving the existing transportation system as part of the UTC Program (https://www. transportation.gov/utc/2016-utc-grantees) that was authorized under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act.
Director’s Message Greetings colleagues and friends! As we step into the holiday season, I wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! This issue features two articles on field application research by INSPIRE UTC researchers. These include (1) Inspection of Steel Bridges Using a Bicycle-like Robot by Dr. Hung La from the University of Nevada at Reno, and (2) Field Validation of a Wireless Bridge Weigh-In Motion System by Dr. Yang Wang from Georgia Institute of Technology. This issue also features an update of the Pooled-Fund Study on Traffic Disruption-Free Bridge Inspection Initiative with Robotic Systems. This study involves the integration, field demonstration, and documentation of Bridge Inspection Robot Deployment Systems (BIRDS), including structural crawlers, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), multimode vehicles, nondestructive evaluation (NDE) devices, sensors, and data analytics. This issue highlights INSPIRE UTC’s participation and contribution to the successful completion of the 8th World Conference on Structural Control and Monitoring (8WCSCM), Orlando, FL, which took place on June 5-8, 2022. Dr. Genda Chen chaired a keynote session. INSPIRE UTC Associate Director Dr. Yang Wang from Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr. Chen proposed, organized, and co-chaired a technical session of eight presentation about the INSPIRE UTC theme. Eight center affiliates made the presentations on mixed reality, thermography, and field validation. This issue also highlights the INSPIRE UTC research impact on transportation workforce, including 22 undergraduate students, 22 graduate students, and seven post doctoral fellows through hands-on research experience. Undergraduate students perform interdisciplinary research related to unmanned systems, rapid air-cushioned vehicles, and augmented reality concepts.
CONSORTIUM MEMBERS
INSPIRE UTC’s outreach program extends to a wide variety of activities coordinated by the Kummer Center of STEM Education at Missouri S&T, including a Robotics camp and K-12 grade lab demonstrations using a robotic platform for bridge inspection. The Center also participated in the Expanding Your Horizons camp using a driving simulator to recreate scenarios for various driving conditions. The Center continues to host quarterly webinars that serve to highlight collaborative opportunities and research relevant to the INSPIRE UTC mission. The upcoming webinar being presented by Dr. ZiQiang Chen from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, “Structural Inspection Automation: Research Challenges and 3D Machine Vision Techniques,” will discuss low-cost 3D structural elements and damage data collection, human-in-the-loop based structural data collection using augmented reality headsets, and visual simultaneous localization and mapping using virtual reality-based robotic drones. We hope you enjoy the featured articles and news at INSPIRE UTC and invite you to visit our website at https://inspire-utc.mst.edu for additional information about upcoming events and webinars.
Genda Chen, Ph.D., P.E., F. ASCE, F. SEI, F. ISHMII Director, INSPIRE University Transportation Center Director, Center for Intelligent Infrastructure