Developing a mixed-reality based application for bridge inspection and maintenance

Bridge inspection, which collects data for assessment and decision-making processes, plays an important role in the maintenance job of bridge structures. However, all of the inspection jobs, including general inspection, principal inspection and special inspection, generate large and unstructured data resulting in ineffective maintenance. Besides, traditional inspection generates only 2D-based and less visionary information. For a more reliable assessment of structures, it is necessary to improve the current inspection technology and process. In recent years, mixed reality (MR) technology has been proved to be effective in improving interaction, communication and collaboration among stakeholders for evaluating the database. MR and holographic technology blend 3D models with physical assets and support users to engage in the models and interact with the project data more intuitively in the real-time simulation. This paper presents an application of MR-based system called HoloBridge to enhance and facilitate bridge inspection and maintenance. The application consists of modules of inspection, evaluation, and damage mapping. The HoloBridge application is being deployed to Microsoft Hololens for tracking and assessing conditions of bridges. The application has been developed by building information modelling (BIM)-based system linked and integrated into a cross-platform game engine to evaluate bridge damage information. The application is piloted with a highway bridge in South Korea and has shown the benefits not only in the digitalized inspection processes, but also in systematic managing bridge performance.