My Research Overview

Research Labs

My name is Evan McLaughlin and I am currently pursuing a MASc in Civil and Environmental Engineering. My main lab is the Structural Dynamics, Control and Identification (SDIC) Lab, led by Professor Sriram Narasimhan, but I also work closely with the Waterloo Autonomous Vehicles (WAVE) Lab led by Professor Steven Waslander.

Overall Goal

I currently work with other graduate students to build a platform for automating bridge inspections using state-of-the-art robotic technologies. The sensors used for this include cameras (visual spectrum and infrared), laser range scanners, a GPS and an IMU to assist with automating inspections. The sensors are chosen to make it possible to mount on either an unmanned ground or aerial vehicle.

My Role

My current role in the overall goal towards automating bridge inspections involves using convolutional deep neural networks for detecting damages in images of reinforced concrete. The first step of this research is to train a network that is able to perform binary damage/not damage classification. The future progression of this project will be to perform semantic pixel-wise segmentation of these images. An example of a final product will be an image that has four pixel classifications: no damage, crack, spall, exposed rebar.