Intelligent robotic system for autonomous crack detection and caracterization in concrete tunnels

This paper presents a complete report for the finished ROBO-SPECT European FP7 project, funded under the ICT-2013.2.2 programme on Robotics use cases & Accompanying measures, describing a completely autonomous tunnel inspection robotic system. The document includes a brief introduction about the motivation of the project, defining advantages of robotic inspection over manual methods. The paper contains descriptions of the different components of the robot, including a mobile vehicle, extended crane, high precision robotic arm, computer vision system and ultrasonic sensors. Some details about the software implemented will be discussed as well. Finally, experimental evidence and details on validation in a real motorway tunnel with ongoing traffic will be provided.