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New technologies applied to railway maintenance

combining remarkable processing capacity and communication interfaces compatible with the
main standards for domestic and industrial communication.
Many of these gadgets will soon incorporate communication interfaces allowing to operate in
bands compatible with 5G technology, therefore they will multiply the communication speed
by 50 to 100 times, and will be considered fully connected devices. The future of railway
maintenance will go through the proper integration and use of these devices.

Among the multiple angles in which one can approach to railway digitization, one could be the
expected usage in maintenance operations. In this way we can have:

• Asset monitoring and diagnosticssystems
• Maintenance supportdevices
• Integration Platforms, data processing and interface with business managementsystems

Asset monitoring and diagnostics systemsprovide to the maintainer built-in technology or later
integration possibilities, as well as monitoring solutions that minimize physical interventions in
the asset. All of them have the objective of continuously and reliably retrieve key parameters
to determine or to infer the equipment performance.
The expected performance of these systems is primarily measured in terms of reliability and
quality to monitor key parameters, which can be physical (distance, temperature, pressure,
vibration, voltage, current) or presence and usage (number of actions) and in terms of the
required time for data transmission. Therefore, reliability, precision and communication
performances in relation to investment and operating costs will be relevant factors to consider
in your selection.
Some examples of monitoring technology are optical and laser systems to perform dimensional
checks, thermographic technology, inductive, electrical or optical systems to confirm the
presence or position of an element, number of maneuvers or displacement, instrumentation for
measurement pressure, etc.

These systems currently allow, for example, temperature and vibration monitoring at grease-
box bearings even in conventional and high-speed vehicles. They also provide means to measure
and to identify degradation patterns in elements subjected to wearing such as pantograph
contact strips or the brake disks, or to monitor interlocking control and driving systems (point
machines) through electrical parameters.

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 25