Automation and Robotics
We don’t yet know how to efficiently communicate with smart materials, monitor their performance, and proactively apply corrective action, hence the reason we need to address sensing, monitoring, maintenance/repair, and communication challenges that overarch our DR concept (i.e. our WP1, WP2 and WP3 research).
WP4 will include methods for sensing geometrical, quality, and condition data of expressways, in part by exploiting the smart material properties at TRL2. The sensing challenge also includes fusions of sensor modalities (laser, infra-red, vision and electro-magnetic signals) to interpret the road conditions for monitoring purposes, and to derive the information needed for the digital processes (WP3) by the digital product (WP1) at TRL3.
The robotics technologies will employ adaptive monitoring strategies to manage the scale of monitoring and repair, such as pro-active selective data capturing and prediction-based defect search algorithms that fully take advantage of the DR concept. Autonomous robot maintenance and repair processes will also be investigated in simulation at first, with the option to proceed to real world demonstrations through WP5 if the COS cash donation budget allows after milestone 2 as shown in the work plan.
The resulting data set accumulated in the DT over time will be used to probabilistically highlight areas of high-priority inspection, while the use of robotic active sensing systems will drive the sensor devices for acquiring high-quality sensory information. The outcomes include a TRL3 robotic proof of concept of the methods validated to address the above. This work is expected to act as the vehicle for
- driving WP3 intelligence,
- interrogating WP2 materials to support physical processes. It will yield a scalable toolset for COS and NH, as it can be expanded in the future to a broader range of processes and other asset types.