Measuring Behavior of Railroad Bridges under Revenue Traffic using Lasers and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for Safer Operations: Implementation

Traditionally, bridge inspectors conduct manual inspections or touch the bridges’ surface to feel their transverse displacement. In order to collect displacements from bridges, sensors are added to bridge components. However, sensor installation costs money, has safety concerns, and involves track time.

The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Rail Safety IDEA Final Report 37: Measuring Behavior of Railroad Bridges under Revenue Traffic using Lasers and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for Safer Operations: Implementation details a new UAV system that can collect displacement data without the need for bridge sensor deployment.