The United States has approximately 575, 000 highway bridges in the National Bridge Inventory; 85% are over streams of rivers. Underwater inspection is important, as emphasized by the 80 flood-related failures that occurred over a recent three-year period. A study was conducted to develop an automated robotic system that will enable safe and cost-effective underwater inspection of bridge substructures. The semiautonomous robotic system will carry a sensor platform underwater to detect scour, deterioration, or damage to support columns. It provides positional data and sensor information to the system operator which can verbally annotated while being recorded.
