A systematic literature review of unmanned underwater vehicle-based structural health monitoring technologies

The structural health of underwater infrastructure such as bridges, dams, and pipelines are constantly degrading due to aging, fatigue, unexpected loads, and environmental wear and tear. Historically, these structures have been inspected by human divers; however, the need for safe and cost-effective monitoring has fostered the development of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) capable of performing subsea surveillance. This paper provides a concise and systematic review of emerging technologies and methodologies for deploying underwater vehicles to perform inspections. Literature is classified into two main groups: advancements to UUV designs and capabilities and advancements to instrumentation for underwater structural health monitoring. After a systematic review, the existing challenges to UUV development and implementation are discussed. Finally, recommendations for future areas of research are outlined. This systematic literature survey aims to provide researchers and practitioners with a holistic outlook on the current state and future trends of UUV-based infrastructure inspection. • This paper provides a systematic review of the use of UUVs for underwater SHM. • Publications are classified and discussed into categories of type of drone systems and underwater data acquisition. • A discussion is provided on current challenges and future research directions. • This review demonstrates the usefulness of UUVs for autonomous underwater SHM.