RADIUS Project is an European project that brings together experts and companies from different countries to promote innovation in the field of railway safety using drones. Its primary objective is to develop a disruptive solution that responds to the current challenges of competitiveness, sustainability, and efficiency in a key sector for the European economy, such as the railway sector.
RADIUS is a very exciting project, as its aim was to ensure the best monitoring and maintenance actions using drone-based inspections that are integrated with the existing railway maintenance systems to guarantee the safety and quality standards that are expected on the railway system. The key for the success of the project was its multidisciplinary approach, integrating the respective know-how of the partners, that included an Infrastructure Manager, Railway Technology supplier, Drone and AI experts, and a Technology integrator. The combination of the different interests and professional backgrounds, resulted in a high innovation pace to integrate the different elements of the solution.
Interview with Manuel Oñate, Communication and Dissemination Manager at RADIUS.
What are the main areas of activity of the [company]project?
Manuel Oñate: RADIUS proposes a new railway maintenance paradigm to completely streamline the railway maintenance tasks. RADIUS has designed, developed, tested, and demonstrated a complete monitoring and maintenance system using unmanned aerial systems (UAS). In order to carry out its activity focused on improving the safety and control of certain signaling assets, whose functioning is basic for the correct operation of the railway industry.
To develop the technology, RADIUS has focused on these activities and objectives:
- Define and integrate the sensors required to collect and process the relevant data.
- Establish a wireless secure communication between the UAS and the asset being monitored.
- Analyse assets most affected by low Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) to define new design requirements to maximize inspection by UAS
- Determine the maintenance actions with a high frequency that can be carried out by UAS
- Interaction with existing maintenance systems present in the railway infrastructure.
- Perform an aviation risk safety assessment for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations to ensure regulation compliance.
The outcome of the project was to conduct a practical demonstration of the proposed solution in a railway relevant environment, achieving TRL 6, thus validating the technology.
What’s the news about new products/services?
M.O: Currently monitoring of railway signalling assets is based on on-demand or programmed human maintenance activities, wired solutions and diagnostic trains. Each of these solutions has important drawbacks, in terms of the investment required, operating costs, operational limitations or safety considerations.
Faced with this scenario, RADIUS has developed a technology that is based on the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to execute a large part of the inspections and a limited range of maintenance activities like tuning, recalibration, activation of special functions, etc.
The RADIUS automation will allow increased inspection frequency and constitutes a true new paradigm for railway inspection and maintenance limiting activities improving the global railway operational service in terms of availability, reliability, and performance.
In summary, these are the main benefits of using RADIUS:
- More frequent inspections: Increasing the frequency of inspections means that preventive measures that expand the life span of signalling assets can be used.
- Cost reduction: The RADIUS system will be easier to use and will reduce the initial investment and the running costs to maintain railway infrastructures.
- Safety increase: RADIUS will increase the safety of the maintenance operations and the operational safety of the railways
- New business models: The RADIUS concept can be extended to other activities and markets creating new service provision business models
What are the ranges of products/services?
M.O: The objective of Radius at the beginning of the project development was based on creating a complete system that has all the elements to carry out the tasks of inspection and maintenance of the signalling assets with drones. The aim was to guarantee their operation because they play a vital role in the correct functioning of the railway sector, ensuring the safety of operators and passengers, as well as guaranteeing the operation of railway traffic, avoiding delays and, in the most serious cases, accidents.
In order to carry out these maintenance tasks, Radius bases its technology on the following concepts:
- GNSS navigation systems using EGNOS and Galileo to ensure precise and reliable geolocation.
- Wireless technology to secure communications between drones, assets and Ground Segment.
- Advanced drone platform for BVLOS flight.
- High performance sensors for accurate detection.
- Adaptation or redesign of the previously mentioned signalling assets to make them drone friendly.
- Docking station to enhance the autonomy of drones.
- Integration with IAMS for intelligent asst management and railway digitalisation.
- Interaction with TMS to ensure safe drone operations in the railway context.
What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
M.O: RADIUS is currently at a very promising stage in its development cycle. After successfully completing the first phase by the end of 2024, the project is ready to start its second stage of research and development, with the objective of perfecting and making the technology viable for commercial implementation. During the first phase, in addition to advancing technical development, we have focused on raising awareness of the project among industry experts, assessing market interest in our solution. The results have been very positive: we have found that there is genuine interest from several key players, as there is currently no similar technology on the market.
This situation places RADIUS in a strategic position, with a market actively demanding solutions like ours and with little direct competition, allowing us to take advantage of a unique opportunity to introduce our technology.
What can you tell us about market trends?
M.O: In the rail industry, safety is a key priority and market trends are clearly oriented towards the adoption of advanced technologies to improve safety.
As digitalization and automation gain ground, there is an increasing focus on implementing solutions based on artificial intelligence, IoT and predictive analytics to anticipate potential failures and optimize risk management. In this context, the RADIUS project plays a key role, as our technology is designed precisely to address these needs.
During the first stage of development, we have found that there is a strong demand for innovative solutions that offer a deeper and more accurate view of railway infrastructures, improving operational safety in real time and enabling early detection of problems. With our technology, rail operators can obtain more accurate data and make informed decisions to reduce risk and improve service reliability. The market is increasingly oriented towards these advanced solutions, and RADIUS is perfectly positioned to offer an effective response to these demands.
What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
M.O: In the railway sector, the most innovative products and services today are related to the integration of advanced technologies to improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of operations. RADIUS is among the most innovative in this regard, as we offer a unique solution that uses technologies such as predictive analytics, real-time monitoring, and artificial intelligence to detect risks and prevent failures in railway infrastructures. What sets RADIUS apart is that our technology not only provides accurate monitoring of operational conditions, but also enables faster and more efficient response to emergency situations, reducing downtime and improving overall safety. Since there is currently no comparable solution on the market, RADIUS is positioning its technology as one of the most disruptive and necessary for the future of the rail industry.
The main conclusions drawn during the development of the project are:
- Radius technology works in the railway environment: The Radius project has succeeded in demonstrating that its technology is technically feasible and allows the use of drones to monitor the correct functioning of infrastructures critical to railway safety. Drones make it possible to carry out more frequent inspections, reduce costs and increase the safety of maintenance operations by avoiding travel and manual work. Moreover, the flights do not interfere with rail traffic.
- The project is feasible due to the development of the docking station: Radius has developed the docking station, a platform strategically located at remote points on the tracks that allows drones to land automatically, recharge their batteries and synchronise the information collected during their inspection flights. These stations make the project viable because they allow longer flights, without the need to return to base. By extending the range and flight time of the drones, the efficiency of the inspections is improved, reducing costs, and increasing coverage by being able to work in BVLOS.
- The information obtained is useful: Radius has proven not only to be technically feasible, but also that the information obtained during its reconnaissance flights is useful and suitable for assessing and monitoring the state of preservation of the crucial signalling assets. Radius makes it possible to detect any damage effectively to prevent rail traffic from being affected.
During these four years of work, Radius has proven to be of great value in these activities:
- Condition monitoring of signalling assets: Images captured by UAS can be used for monitoring of coatings of signalling racks, light intensity of line-side signals, track circuit key parameters, temperature, point machine key parameters, etc.
- Identification of vandalism: Detection of vandalism against signalling assets and railway installations close to the tracks.
- Detection of malicious and no malicious radio frequency interference: The UAS can measure signals that are above given thresholds and have the capability of disturbing the signalling communications because of new radio transmissions, degradation of devices that cause emitting outside the usual spectrum, intentional disturbances, etc.
- Wireless diagnostic data collection: The UAS can get enough diagnostic data to perform a real-time preliminary analysis aimed at identifying the immediate maintenance actions (e.g., tuning of some key parameters) to restore the operational conditions.
- Software updates of signalling assets: Signalling assets incur in degraded functionalities because of ageing and wearing of their parts. In most cases, an UAS can fine tune them, optimising their threshold settings or performing firmware updates using wireless technology, considering the security risks inherent to firmware upgrades.
- Clearance after human or mechanical intervention under track possession: UAS can also contribute to increase safety by using the visual sensors to verify that a working site is clear from human
What estimations do you have for the beginning of 2025?
M.O: Following the completion of the first stage of development at the end of last year, RADIUS is now immersed in the analysis of the results obtained during the years of development to move forward with the next phases of our project.
In order to continue with the development of the technology, we need to conduct further research to refine the technical aspects of the technology and ensure that it is fully viable for market deployment. We have seen that the market interest in our solution is real, and our goal is to have a more advanced version of the technology in the coming years, that not only improves safety in the railway environment, but also helps to reduce operating costs and optimize the work of operators.
The ultimate goal is to have a fully functional solution that meets the needs and requirements of the industry. But to achieve this, we need more funds to invest in research and practical testing.