Critical Infrastructure

Railway track must withstand tremendous stresses over decades in a working lifetime, through a range of weather conditions. When damage does occur it causes costly delays with widespread ramifications for the network as a whole. With thousands of kilometers of track in the UK network alone, the ongoing inspection and management of existing rail infrastructure presents a serious challenge for the rail industry.

Where present rail inspection techniques rely on disruptive periodic assessments, Full Matrix has developed a low-cost, continuous monitoring system for deployment in high-risk areas. Robust EMAT transducers installed on the rail web transmit guided waves and interrogate hundreds of meters per node. Monitoring the reception of ultrasound indicates the condition of the whole rail and can detect breakages or debris in real time.

The FM rail system is built around a versatile new sensor platform constructed from low-cost, commercially available components. The cost-reduction and versatility of this IoT sensor system is highly advantageous, providing a platform for additional distributed instrumentation to be integrated into a smart monitoring solution.

The EMAT transducers themselves are robust low cost transducers, that require no couplant and can be implemented on surfaces with no preparation.