GPR Rail
Railway infrastructure is a highly reliable network that requires continuous monitoring to maintain the high levels of safety and comfort demanded by society. These maintenance plans cover all aspects and components of the infrastructure that affect its safety, service life, and operational efficiency, with ballast being one of the key elements to be inspected.
The main form of ballast deterioration is a process known as fouling or contamination, which reduces its performance and can lead to track defects of varying severity depending on the degree of fouling.
With extensive experience in the railway sector, Rover has developed a dynamic inspection technology to determine the degree of ballast compaction. The inspection system is mounted on track machinery and consists of several antennas operating at different frequency bands, enabling the identification of areas requiring localized intervention and/or presenting associated geotechnical risks.
This approach represents a significant improvement in the current framework of predictive maintenance, allowing prioritization of interventions by area, identification of urgent repairs, scheduling of maintenance periodicity, and monitoring of zones less affected by ballast degradation.
The measurements have already been validated using a frame integrated into a Rover tamping machine, meaning the system is ready for operational deployment. A new R&D line is currently under study, aimed at further innovation in this area through the intelligent assessment of ballast condition using AI-based tools.
