July 16, 2014
FORUM8 Co., Ltd.
| FORUM8's "System based on Autonomous UAV and 3D VR for Inspection
and Assessment of Structures" chosen as "The Robot for the Next
Generation Social Infrastructure with Target Application in Onsite Inspection"
in the field of 'bridge maintenance and management', by Japan Ministry
of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. |
FORUM8 Co., Ltd. (head office based in 2-15-1 SHINAGAWA INTERCITY A 21F Konan Minato-ku Tokyo, JAPAN; managed by president Yuji Ito. URL: http://www.forum8.co.jp) has submitted their proposal for the development of a "System based on Autonomous UAV and 3D VR for Inspection and Assessment of Structures" in response to the 'call for contributions' by Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, and the system has been successfully chosen as "The Robot for the Next Generation Social Infrastructure with Target Application in Onsite Inspection ".
This 'call for contributions' sought for "Robotic technology / Robot system" with an application in 'onsite inspection and assessment' that could be useful for maintenance and management, and was open to the general public from April 9th to May 28th, 2014. Among the 68 applications from private enterprises and 31 applications from universities, 25 projects involving the system/technology in the field of "Bridge maintenance and management" were chosen.
From October of this year, the site under the jurisdiction of the ministry will be made available to the system developers to test the practicality of their technology/system. The aim is to have the systems run as trial in the 2016 fiscal year, and introduce the final systems in the 2017 fiscal year or later.
FORUM8's "System based on Autonomous UAV and 3D VR for Inspection and Assessment of Structures" has been adopted as the ideal system under the 2 subcategory: "Close visual inspection of concrete bridges" and "Close visual inspection of floor board". This is a fully integrated system in which the VR data of Interactive 3D Virtual Reality Software UC-win/Road and autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (multi-wing helicopter) are linked together, and can be controlled from a remote PC to inspect structures such as bridges and dams quickly and safely.
Small HD camera, IR camera, sensor that measures temperature and humidity mounted on the drone collects sensor data and takes pictures and videos of the surrounding environment, which are then sent to a station PC to reconstruct in real-time the 3D environment of the structures surrounding the drone.
FORUM8 continues to research and develop various solutions that use robots in addition to this state-of-the-arts development. In the CIM presentation conference organized by the Japan Association of Civil Engineers and "IM&VR/CIM technology support seminar" (organized by FORUM8), which will be held at 10 different locations within Japan, FORUM8 plans to introduce its latest developments in robotics including the wearable VR (Oculus Rift) and a sensing tool that incorporates Kinect and VR which are linked and operated together.
The first seminar will be held on July 18th, 2014 in Sapporo.
| Customized autonomous flying robot | |
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| Linking 3DVR and autonomous flying robot | |
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<Related information>
Press Release by the Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (July 10th, 2014)
"The Robot for The Next Generation Infrastructure with Target Application in Onsite Inspection (bridge maintenance and management), has been decided!"
http://www.mlit.go.jp/report/press/sogo15_hh_000117.html(Japanese)
FORUM8's robotics
http://www.forum8.co.jp/english/uc-win/ucwin-road-1_3-e.htm#robo
Real-time Interactive 3D VR Simulation & Modeling Software UC-win/Road
http://www.forum8.co.jp/english/uc-win/ucwin-road-e1.htm
To request for documentations of our products, please access the below URL to contact us.
http://www.forum8.co.jp/english/contact-e.htm
