Multilevel Structural Components Detection and Segmentation toward Computer Vision-Based Bridge Inspection

Bridge inspection plays a critical role in mitigating the safety risks associated with bridge deterioration and decay. CV (computer vision) technology can facilitate bridge inspection by accurately automating the structural recognition tasks, especially useful in UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles)-assisted bridge inspections. This study proposed a framework for the multilevel inspection of bridges based on CV technology, and provided verification using CNN (convolution neural network) models. Using a long-distance dataset, recognition of the bridge type was performed using the Resnet50 network. The dataset was built using internet image captures of 1200 images of arched bridges, cable-stayed bridges and suspension bridges, and the network was trained and evaluated. A classification accuracy of 96.29% was obtained. The YOLOv3 model was used to recognize bridge components in medium-distance bridge images. A dataset was created from 300 images of girders and piers collected from the internet, and image argumentation techniques and the tuning of model hyperparameters were investigated. A detection accuracy of 93.55% for the girders and 82.64% for the piers was obtained. For close-distance bridge images, segmentation and recognition of bridge components were investigated using the instance segmentation algorithm of the Mask–RCNN model. A dataset containing 800 images of girders and bearings was created, and annotated based on Yokohama City bridge inspection image records data. The trained model showed an accuracy of 90.8% for the bounding box and 87.17% for the segmentation. This study also contributed to research on bridge image acquisition, computer vision model comparison, hyperparameter tuning, and optimization techniques.