ni.

com

Dr. Cristina Cristalli, Ing. Alessandro Salvucci

Developing a Mobile Robot to Inspect Railway Switches

www.loccioni.com

c.cristalli@loccioni.com

ni.com

Loccioni develops measurement and control automated systems

to improve products, processes and buildings quality, efficiency
and sustainability

LOCCIONI AT A GLANCE

LOCCIONI WORLDWIDE

www.loccioni.com

BUSINESS AREAS

364 direct employees

50% with University degree
(3,4% PhD)

RESEARCH AT LOCCIONI

65 Millions Euro (FY 2013)

Installations in more than 40
countries
7% of the personnel cost invested
in education

5% of the sales turnover invested

in research

ni.com

4 Headquarters
Loccioni Italy
Angeli di Rosora
Moie di Maiolati
Loccioni USA
Washington DC

Loccioni Germany
Stuttgart

COMPETENCES

Loccioni China
Shanghai

Measure & Testing

Automating
Energy Management

Outline

The Challenge in Railway Switch Inspections

The solution

Vision Inspection characteristics

Image processing

Conclusions

ni.com

The challenge

Railway network maintenance: critical issue for

safety.
Lack of maintenance 39% of accidents.
Railroad switches: critical points for derailment.

Main causes of trains delays in Italy (2012)

ANSF - Italian National Agency for the Railway Safety

ni.com

The solution
cost

manual
instruments

diagnostic
wagons

Felix robot

flexibility
ni.com

performance & automation

6

Felix specification
The first mobile robot for automatic railway switch inspection

Flexibility
replaces multiple manual tools for
different measures
used both on railroad switches and on
tracks
Automation
analyzes more switches in series
reduces times vs manual survey
Objectivity
increases accuracy of the measurement
avoids personnel errors in test plans

Safety
increases safety for operators
guarantees railways safety
Cost
cheaper compared to diagnostic
wagons
ni.com

System modules
Instrumentation module
| Measure systems
| I/O management
| Battery
| Emergency buttons
| Plug & play connections

Remote control
| Radio remote control
| PC ni.com
tablet

Mobile platform
| 3 motors
| 8 wheels (4 with encoder)

Safety
| Front and rear bumper
| Lateral bumper

Measurement Principle: Triangulation

Profilometer

Digital camera + Laser

Evaluation of laser deflection
reconstruction of the 3rd
dimension
Profile extraction
measure of depth, width
Shape reconstruction through
scanning
Calibration with GUM regulations
Max resolution: 0,05mm
Measure uncertainty: 0,1mm

H v
Z (v, f , H , )
cos( ) v cos( ) f sin( )
ni.com

Profilometer Characteristics

Sensor technology CMOS

Resolution 3840x2748
Resolution depth 12bit
Frame rate 25 FPS
Interference filter inside
Infrared laser line
Operating temperature -20 to 60C

ni.com

10

Real Time Data Acquisition

The needs to acquire many inputs and to manage signal gathering and
elaboration in real time, led to the integration of FPGA sbRIO 9626, with many
advantages for the global performances of the solution. By embedding this
functionalities in the FPGA, the processing was offloaded from the PC,
increasing scan velocity of the robot and achieving robustness and
deterministic correlation among data.

trigger
PC

Profilometer
image acquired

Encoder
ni.com

11

SW characteristics

| NI Labview system design software allowed a rapid prototyping during the

various cycles of product consolidation, shortening the release times. It was also
useful to create a good looking, intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) for the
field operators.
| NI Vision toolkit was at the basis of the Felix brain, leading to the creation of non
contact measurements algorithms; these have been used for the tridimensional
information extraction from the railway switches.
| Report Generation toolkit was also fundamental to show to the Customers a
final synthesis of the test plans.
| The SW engineering tools (requirement gateway, VI analyzer toolkit, desktop
execution trace, unit test framework) gave a support for the data integrity and
security achievement.

ni.com

12

Technical features
| Resolution: 0.1 mm

| Minimal distance between two

measurements: 2 mm
| Maximum Speed 5 km/h
|Continuous working : 6 hours
| Performing in any weather condition
-20 C + 50 C

ni.com

13

Image Processing

The system stores, processes and displays in

real time 3D measurements and then
extrapolates specific measurements in
accordance with European regulation.

ni.com

14

Calibration

ni.com

15

Calibration in laboratory and on site

Certifications
| EN 13848 track geometry quality
| EN 13232 switches and crossings
| SIT (Italian calibration Service)
calibration certificate
| 18 month metrological performances
guaranteed after calibration

Laboratory calibration bench

on site verification artifact
ni.com

16

Measures

Continuous measure of track geometry

Track gauge
Sliding average on 100 m track gauge
Cross level
Twist on 3 m base
Twist on variable base
Crossed distance
Characteristic distances of S&C
(switches and crossings)
Punctual measures and geometry checks
Gauge
Break spaces
Free wheel passage
Crossed distance
Implementable measures
Wear rail-stock rail
Other measures on request

ni.com

17

Conclusion: from idea to product

feasibility study

engineered prototype

product | model A0

prototype
2010
ni.com

product | model A1

2011

2012
18

2013

2014

Thank you!!!
Dr. Cristina Cristalli
Research for Innovation Director
AEA srl Loccioni Group
Angeli di Rosora (AN), ITALY

Phone +39 0731 816280

c.cristalli@loccioni.com
http://www.loccioni.com/

http://research.loccioni.com/

ni.com

19