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Review of Reconfigurable Swarm Robots for Structural Health Monitoring

Recent advancements in robotic systems have led to the development of reconfigurable swarm robots (RSR) that can change their shape and functionality dynamically, without any external intervention. RSR have the advantages of being modular, on-site reconfigurable, multifunctional, incrementally assemble-able, reusable, fault-tolerant, and even repairable on the orbit. Newly-developed reconfigurable robots are expected to bring a radical change in the prevailing structural health monitoring techniques, thus augmenting the efficiency, accuracy and affordability of inspection operations. This study presents a holistic review of the previous studies and state-of-the-art technologies in the field of RSR, and argues that RSR offer great potential advantages from the perspective of monitoring and assessment of civil and mechanical systems. A roadmap for future research has also been outlined based on the limitations of the current methods and anticipated needs of future inspection systems.

Related Publication

Mohammad R. Jahanshahi, Wei-Men Shen, Tarutal Ghosh Mondal, Mohamed Abdelbarr, Sami F. Masri and Uvais A. Qidwai, (2017), "Reconfigurable swarm robots for structural health monitoring: a brief review," International Journal of Intelligent Robotics and Applications, in press, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41315-017-0024-8.