Dr. Dezhen Song received a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to develop a new robotic system, algorithms and control schemes for sustainable civil infrastructures. The project, "Collaborative Research: Minimally Invasive Robotic Non-Destructive Evaluation and Rehabilitation for Bridge Decks (Bridge-MINDER)," is a collaborative effort between Texas A&M University and Rutgers University. Song is the principal investigator.
"Bridges are critical components of modern transportation infrastructure," said Song. "Bridges deteriorate over time as a result of material aging, excessive use and overloading, environmental conditions, inadequate maintenance, and deficiencies in inspection and evaluation. Building on the recent advances in robotics and automation technologies, the objective of this project is to develop a novel Minimally Invasive robotic Non-Destructive Evaluation and Rehabilitation (MINDER) for bridge decks."
Song's research has a relationship of mutual benefit with the National Robotics Initiative, which is supported by NSF, NASA, NIH and the USDA.
"The project outcomes, including source code, datasets, and publications, are to be shared among research community and the general public," said Song. "The project also includes a number of integrated research and education programs to attract students from underrepresented groups into engineering and involve students into robotics research."
Song is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M and director of the NetBot Laboratory. He received his doctoral degree in industrial engineering and operations research from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004, and joined the CSE faculty the same year. His research interests include robot sensing, networked robots, vision systems, and stochastic modeling.