Radius participates in EU Space Week to showcase the business opportunities it proposes to improve rail safety
November 9, 2023
Radius participated in EU Space Week 2023, which was held from November 7th to 9th in Seville. The congress is a central hub for anyone interested in current -and future- trends of the EU Space Programme. Its main objective was to gather policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and space enthusiasts for plenaries, panel discussions, awards, and keynote addresses to connect, learn, and shape the future of #EUSpace.
During the fair, a rail session was held to give participants an opportunity to share their insights and requirements, shaping the future of the EU Space Services for Rail. It also offered an overview of the current state-of-the-art projects in Railway signalling and earth observation services
In that respect, three projects showcasing GNSS applications in the railway domain were presented focused on independent train localizer, virtual beacon and digital maps and of course Radius, demonstrating infrastructure monitoring using drones. The section was completed with a presentation of Earth Observation uses cases and requirements in Sweden.
The RADIUS project
Radius explained to industry colleagues and other stakeholders during the fair its mission to address the challenge of rail maintenance. There is currently no optimal solution to inspect, monitor and maintain railway signaling assets. To solve this problem, Radius proposes a completely new paradigm by designing, developing, testing and demonstrating a complete monitoring and maintenance system using unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
The maintenance system will focus mainly on the switches, cabinets, and crossings of the railway tracks. The objective is to increase safety by carrying out periodic checks to quickly identify any type of failure. This new paradigm translates into cost savings and increased safety. In addition, Radius represents a new business model because its concept can be extended to other activities and markets, creating a new service provision business models.
In conclusion, Radius presented the innovation opportunities for the project in Seville, which can be summarized as follows:
- 3D GNSS Capabilities with improved position and altitude accuracy
- PPP (Precise Point Positioning) for centimeter-level accuracy
- Consistent and stable readings to ensure predictable flight behavior
- Enhanced anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities in GNSS receivers can help protect drones from intentional or unintentional signal disruption.
You can download a copy of the presentation in our documents section.
About the Rail User Consultation Platform
The user consultation itself will be split into three different parts, focusing independently on GNSS, Earth Observation and Satellite communication. This will provide the possibility to obtain user feedback for what concerns the major applications and respective requirements associated with concrete use cases, with a future outlook to ensure that the EU Space Programme can reflect the railway needs in the context of ongoing innovation within railway signaling, maintenance or other operational activities.
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