Stimio offer safe and cost-effective remote monitoring solution

Credit: Stimio

To ensure the uninterrupted service and safety of rail infrastructure, the monitoring of catenary tensioning is essential for the entire network. However, in order to avoid contact wire breaking, the tension must be constant.

Safety, the quality of service and maintenance costs are the main issues when it comes to monitoring catenary tensioning. In extreme weather conditions, such as high temperatures, the counterweights are lowered and can reach the stops. This means that the mechanical tension is no longer maintained, the contact wires are no longer horizontal and can break when the pantograph passes or create electric arcs. To prevent this from happening, on-the-spot verifications and interventions are needed frequently, but at a very high cost. This is why Stimio has deployed a remote monitoring solution which drastically reduces the number of inspection rounds and at the same time avoids disruption of the service.

Stimio’s catenary tensioning monitoring solution can be easily deployed thanks to the Railnode IoT device, which is railway certified. The Railnode is attached to the top of the catenary mast and measures the height of the counterweight. The data is stored, decoded, and visualised on Stimio’s Cloud Oxygen platform, enabling the monitoring and prediction of the tension of the catenaries. The information collected is downloaded wirelessly and, if required, directly into the customer’s third-party information system. Railnode has a life span of up to five years, is battery operated and requires no power cables. Its installation is all the more simplified. The modularity and swiftness of the solution fulfils its objective perfectly by offering rapid implementation without substantial intervention on the equipment.

With Stimio’s IoT solution, from the sensor to the cloud interface, it is able to optimise maintenance operations thanks to its ability to predict the catenary tensioning up to 48 hours in advance on the entire network. Stimio’s turnkey solution allows the creation of a behavioural model of catenary tensioning and counterweight height. This is of paramount interest, to be able to predict the behaviour of the counterweight height upstream and anticipate maintenance actions as accurately as possible. The platform’s dashboards are especially adapted to the needs of the railway operators and make it possible to create alerts in order to be warned when the height of the counterweight exceeds the defined threshold.