Portable Robot for Scour Survey Below Highway Bridges

The robot is designed to remotely survey streambed conditions around underwater bridge foundations. Operating from the bridge deck, the operator can quickly and easily inspect the area and around the underwater foundations for scour damage. Scour is the term used by bridge engineers to describe erosion of the streambed around bridge pilings and piers. Erosion of this type has resulted in the catastrophic failure of many bridges. The robot has a 60 ft. (18 m) long telescoping manipulator arm that reaches over the side of the bridge to place a sonar probe in the water under the bridge (Fig. 1). The operator on the bridgedeck uses a small joystick control to sweep the arm parallel and perpendicular to the roadway to cover the entire inspection area. A 386DX computer on the robot automatically records the position of the probe and the depth of the water at each data point. The data file collected by the robot can be displayed in spread sheet or contour map format for use by the bridge engineers to determine the safety margin of the bridge foundations.