The Western Railway has commissioned an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Loco Inspection System at Trip Shed, Bandra Terminus on December 18. The new AI system will help increase efficiency, enhance maintenance of the locomotive engines, and improve locomotive outage.
The existing system is manual, where maintenance is carried out in a periodic manner. With the predictive asset maintenance system, the condition of equipment in locos will be continuously monitored. It can inspect the sides, underframe and roof of the loco train. Some of the checks that the system will measure include the axle box temperatures, detection of hanging parts, loose parts, foreign particles, wheel profile, carbon strip defects, brake block thickness, broken roof insulators, cattle guard defects, and primary spring cracks of the loco. The system will raise alarms for proper intervention during an emergency.
The technology utilises a 3D camera, 2D camera, thermal camera, LIDARs, edge processors, sliding arms, access points, etc. Using this technology also reduces the cost and time of maintenance.
The speed of the AI-based Locomotive Inspection System is 1 metre per minute and the time taken to inspect one loco on a set of parameters by the system is 20 mins, as against 3 hours in manual mode. The newly launched AI-based Locomotive Inspection System has resulted in manpower savings and has increased pit availability and improved locomotive outage.
