Direction of Research and Development of Life-cycle Maintenance.

Various social-infrastructure facilities have been constructed in Japan since the period of the country's rapid economic growth. These facilities are currently aging, and the cost related to their maintenance, management, and renovation has become a serious issue. It is therefore necessary to improve the efficiency of the maintenance and management cycle to reduce this enormous cost and extend the service life of facilities. In this article, we use the term life-cycle maintenance to refer to the entire life cycle of the maintenance and management of telecommunication infrastructure, from maintenance planning to inspection, diagnosis, and repair, reinforcement, and renovation. We introduce the direction of research and development of life-cycle maintenance and present case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]