Smart maintenance and inspection of linear assets: An Industry 4.0 approach

Linear assets have linear properties, for instance, similar underlying geometry and characteristics, over a distance. They show specific patterns of continuous inherent deteriorations and failures. Therefore, remedial inspection and maintenance actions will be similar along the length of a linear asset, but because as the asset is distributed over a large area, the execution costs are greater. Autonomous robots, for instance, unmanned aerial vehicles, pipe inspection gauges, and remotely operated vehicles, are used in different industrial settings in an ad-hoc manner for inspection and maintenance. Autonomous robots can be programmed for repetitive and specific tasks; this is useful for the inspection and maintenance of linear assets. This paper reviews the challenges of maintaining the linear assets, focusing on inspections. It also provides a conceptual framework for the use of autonomous inspection and maintenance practices for linear assets to reduce maintenance costs, human involvement, etc., whilst improving the availability of linear assets by effective use of autonomous robots and data from different sources.