Tunnels play a fundamental role within the context of infrastructures for transportation, services and general purposes. Processes of tunnel structural inspection and assessment must be performed to assure their correct functionality. These processes are currently performed in person, by human qualified operators, in uncomfortable and even dangerous conditions such as dust environments, absence of light, or toxic substance exposition. This paper presents the ROBO-SPECT European project under the programme on Robotics use cases & Accompanying measures, a robotized alternative to manual tunnel structural inspection and assessment of these infrastructures. With an automated robotic system, the aim is to detect cracks, other defects, and a general structural assessment. Physical developments of the project include the design and implementation of a multidegree-of-freedom robotic system, composed by a mobile vehicle, an extended crane, and a high precision robotic arm. Sensory input to the structural inspection and assessment includes a high-resolution multi-camera system, as well as an ultrasonic sensor (US) robotic tool to measure width and depth of detected cracks. Experimental evidence and details on validation in a real motorway tunnel with ongoing traffic within the context of the project will be provided.
