EuroUSC has been present in the test flight conducted by RADIUS to showcase and fine tune its remote data acquisition technology that enables the gathering of status and maintenance related data from signaling assets from a flying drone. This improves the safety of railway infrastructure maintenance operations because no human presence is required on the tracks while reducing costs and increasing the frequency of inspections.
On March 23, 2024, the team carried out the flight tests at the Naples location of Hitachi Rail, the project coordinator and leader of the asset modification and remote acquisition tasks within the project. It was a long day, comprising more than 10 hours for the setup, initial connectivity tests, data acquisition and analysis of the data.
Apart from Hitachi, the team was formed by EuroUSC España, in charge of communication and dissemination, Zenabyte an AI and data analytics specialist, and Topview, a Napolitan drone operator with ample experience in European R&D activities, conducted the flights.
Please look at the following video to see the key moments of the test flights:
The approach followed by RADIUS eliminates the known limitations of traditional wired solutions used traditionally to monitor railway assets. These systems require heavy investments and offer very limited bandwidth. The solution proposed by RADIUS substantially reduces the investment, while providing much higher data capacity
The test flights we conducted in Naples are a demonstration that Radius is on the right track. Moreover, carrying out these tests allows us to fulfill EuroUSC's objective of bringing the project closer to the general public and making it known to those who may be interested in its use.
Manuel Oñate
EuroUSC General Manager
The test equipment was a DJI Matrice 300 powered with a Nvidia Jetson Nano development kit, equipped with a Wi-Fi adapter to communicate with a signaling asset simulator, also specifically designed by RADIUS. This combination of equipment allows for further development of the system to enhance the capture, analysis, and interaction between the drone and the signaling assets in the future, increasing the capabilities of the RADIUS concept.
In conclusion, with this test, RADIUS has shown that remote acquisition of data is workable in the railway domain, opening the door to extending the concept to other categories of assets and other linear infrastructures.