Laser Balast
In railway construction activities, one of the main issues that may arise is that the section where work is planned does not have the required amount of material available. In such cases, the execution of scheduled works suffers significant delays, since without sufficient material the planned tasks cannot be carried out. Therefore, encountering a section with a shortage of material prevents execution, highlighting the importance of Laser Ballast, a system for measuring ballast quantities using 3D vision technologies. The ability to identify areas with material shortages in advance would greatly facilitate and improve service quality, as well as the performance of both human resources and heavy machinery assigned to these tasks.
Another objective of developing this tool is to advance the automation of measurement processes for all variables influencing task planning, given that, until now, there has been no technology capable of accurately measuring the quantity of material.
It is also important to consider the environmental perspective. Optimizing the use of natural resources is crucial. With this tool, it becomes possible to identify excess material accumulated along extended sections of track and to recover it. This would significantly reduce the economic costs associated with raw materials and their transport to site, as well as environmental costs, by optimizing resource use and reducing the carbon footprint, thanks to fewer transport operations from quarry to site and during material placement.
