Development of an Aerial Inspection Robot with EPM and camera arm for steel structures

Abstract

In this study, we present an aerial robot which equipped with EPM (Electro Permanent Magnet) and two camera arms to conduct a visual inspection of the steel bridges instead of humans. Since bottom surfaces of steel bridges are complicated, robot equipped with typical camera gimbals cannot shoot the entire area of the bridge. Hence, we developed a light and long camera arm for the aerial robot It is possible to shoot the intricate parts of the bridges by mounting these camera arms to the robot. And, we carried out close-up shooting experiment using a structure which stimulates the H-shaped steel in order to evaluate the High performance and the shooting ability.