The UIC project ROBOTICS kick-off meeting, took place via Teams on 27 June, with 7 participants from SBB, ADIF, RFI, ÖBB and UIC.
ROBOTICS is managed by the Track Expert Group (TEG), from the Rail System Forum platform and is exclusively for Infrastructure Managers (IMs).
The main goal is to replace manual periodic inspections with more frequent, automated and standardised ones. This could not only increase the availability, reliability and safety, but also the repeatability and consistency of the big data required for artificial intelligence.
It will also reduce costs while enhancing the safety and quality of infrastructure and operations to make rail traffic a more attractive option than road transport.
The kick-off was opened by Marcos Conceição, the UIC Senior Advisor in charge of the project, who explained RSD’s structure, the Infrastructure Subsystem and the TTI sector. He highlighted the importance of these projects and their link to other ongoing projects such as RFID and AVRIS.
The project will proceed as follows:
- WP1: Benchmark studies
- WP2: Turnout inspections with robots and monitoring with sensors
- WP3: Superstructure inspections and monitoring with sensors
- WP4: A report with proposals for setting up sensor monitoring and robot inspections on rail infrastructure
The next meeting is scheduled for 17 October 2022.
