Railway Inspection using Digital Transformation Techniques

Abstract

Railway track inspection is a critical task in railway maintenance operations. It is periodically done for preventing hazards that can have significant legal and financial consequences. Inspection is usually operated manually by trained human operators walking along the railway track, searching for visual anomalies, or by using traditional surveying techniques. This is time-consuming, not accurate, and inefficient. These traditional methods of inspection cost a lot of work hours and effort from both engineers and technicians, which can be saved by using digital techniques non-contact systems such as Terrestrial laser scanning. Terrestrial laser scanners can provide complete digitization for the environment surrounding the Railways right of way and tracks. Moreover, they are also widely applied for rail track surveys, clearance measurements, infrastructure reconstruction, tunnel mapping and much more. The effectiveness of rail inspection depends on the efficiency and accuracy of the inspection method used and the necessary equipment. It also depends on the knowledge, skill, ability, and experience of inspectors. This thesis proposes a complete solution for railway non-contact inspection using high definition (HD) phase shift (PS) static terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). The proposed solution can help in doing fast and immersive data acquisition and data analytics for inspection. The solution will help in monitoring the tracks and their supporting mechanisms. Also, it will use and rely on the in-depth data analysis from the change detection between two scans at different epochs to detect the rate of change during this period.

The methodology applied in this research: The proposed method of railway inspection applying the digital transformation concept using the terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) to get accurate Inspection data for railways environment which lead to powerful and ease Asset management is structured in 3 phases: Laser Scanning data Acquisition with accurate planning for scanner location and relative target’s locations Laser Scanning data processing which includes filtration and registration Laser Scanning data comparison and verification with standard cross section of rail and with another absolute data from total station to ensure the accuracy The thesis consists of seven chapters