rcm2 leader in innovation: OptRail project among winners of Innovate UK contest
rcm2 is delighted to announce that its project Integrated Optical Fibre Sensing (OptRail-PRO), is among the winners of the national contest 2020 First of a Kind (FOAK) competition in the category Optimised and cost-effective maintenance.
The project, as part of the First of a Kind 2020 Rail Innovation Programme, funded by DfT and delivered by Innovate UK, aims at the improvement and simplification of the maintenance of railway lines, reducing risks and costs.
The contest, launched by the Department for Transport, in partnership with Innovate UK, encourages innovation in the rail industry and aims with its funding to bring new technology into the railways to make them cleaner, greener and safer (as the UK leads the way to net zero carbon emissions) as well as more passenger-friendly, focusing on 4 categories: Customer experience, Environmental sustainability, Optimised and cost-effective maintenance, Optimised railway operations. On June 2020, it was announced that the final selection awarded 25 pioneering projects a share of £9.4 million.
Among the winners, OptRail represents a big innovative step ahead in the field of real-time monitoring: thanks to many years of experience in the railway sector, rcm2 is developing the application of novel fibre-optic sensing technology for continuous structural health monitoring of rail tracks, switches and crossing and automated maintenance planning.
OptRail is designed as a tool of great value for railway operators: besides its accuracy, it will be developed as highly resilient and collaborative system, equipped with advanced IoT communication, AI for automated decision support and risk-based inspection approach.
OptRail will be a great tool for public and private actors within railway industry, since it enables high precision with low installation cost: it optimizes the processes of risk based inspection and maintenance, improving the measurement of multi-point strain, displacement and temperature, as well as the accuracy of distributed sensing of stress state of the track. Moreover, OptRail will be a highly collaborative and multi-purpose platform since it allows to monitor, besides S&C defects for condition-based maintenance, the whole range of rail traffic parameters (axle counting, loading) with benefits not only for operators but also for users.
Indeed, despite being developed for industry operators, OptRail Pro has been designed starting from the concept “Putting Passengers First”, including objectives such as:
- EVERY SECOND COUNTS: Improved availability and punctuality and reduced reliability of vital infrastructure assets
- VALUE FOR MONEY: Reduced asset lifecycle costs, optimised maintenance through robust automated regime
- LOCAL FOCUS: Supporting Front-Line Maintenance Staff (Track but also covering Signalling with S&C integration)
As result of the competition, rcm2 will be able to further proceed in its path to be at the forefront of technologies exported world-wide, since the grant lets the company to demonstrate the innovative prototype solution developed within the previous collaborative R&D project OptRail, funded by Innovate UK in 2018 (project reference 104246). OptRail-Pro represents thus the second step towards the development of a highly innovative solution on global scale, that will increase the efficiency of rail traffic and lower its risks, keeping costs low despite the very high accuracy of the data provided on a continuous basis.
