Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Leanne Attard’s research sits at the intersection of computer vision, robotics, and structural health monitoring, with a primary focus on automating the inspection of critical infrastructure. Her most impactful work centers on developing vision-based systems for tunnel liners, where she pioneered methods for change detection using bi-temporal image comparison and decision-level fusion of change maps. This approach addresses a critical safety issue: traditional tunnel inspections require humans to be physically present in hazardous environments, making them subjective, time-consuming, and dangerous. Her 2018 paper on this topic has accumulated 64 citations, establishing her as a key voice in the field. Attard further advanced the domain by creating a comprehensive virtual reality system for tunnel surface documentation, enabling safer, more objective structural health monitoring. She also contributed to practical robotics applications, including image mosaicing for tunnel wall images captured from moving robotic platforms and an RGB-D video-based wire detection tool to aid robotic arms during machine alignment in research facilities. Her work demonstrates a clear trajectory from foundational computer vision techniques to deployable systems that enhance safety and efficiency in infrastructure maintenance.