Clarification of performance requirements for utilizing robotic technology for regular inspection of steel bridges

Adopting advanced technology such as UAV into bridge inspection is attracting attention. This study focused on steel bridges. The field testing was conducted on two selected steel bridges in Gifu prefecture, Japan. The results of field testing showed that some of the advanced technologies already have enough performance to support bridge inspection. Based on those results, this paper showed the technology ad-vantages/limitations and suggested the foundation of guidelines for adopting advanced robotic technologies in steel bridge inspection by clarifying the performance requirements. In terms of the performance requirements for those technologies, obtaining the wide-area and narrow-area information to detect defects such as corrosion, coating deterioration and fatigue of the steel bridge were required. As the specific requirements for steel bridges, the operability to narrow areas and approaching function for each structural design of the bridge were clarified.