A comprehensive virtual reality system for tunnel surface documentation and structural health monitoring

Abstract

Infrastructures may develop defects over time and thus periodic monitoring is required to evaluate their health. Structural inspection of such constructions can sometimes be restricted due to short time windows in which humans can access the area as well as due to various hazardous conditions that may be present. This work advances the state of the art in structural inspection by contributing to the field of robotics, vision and inspection by proposing a comprehensive system to provide a better means of surface documentation and to aid structural health monitoring. A mobile robotic platform is equipped with one or more cameras to capture images of walls. Such images are then reconstructed into a 3D model that can be visualised through Virtual Reality (VR). The model can then be further analysed via subsequent image processing stages. Although the prime purpose of the system is for deployment in tunnels, it can be adapted to various other scenarios.