Last week, the SNCF (French National Railway Company) completed its first experiment of viaduct inspection by an UAS. During this experiment, the trains were still running at 300 km/h.
Until now, the inspection and maintenance of the viaduct in concrete of Roquemaure, built from 1997 to 1998 above the Rhone, was performed annually by a vehicle circulating on the road, equipped with a basket to drop below the viaduct. But on Tuesday, 5 November, in the morning, this inspection was carried out by a small UAS flying close to the arches of the viaduct where pass trains between Orange (Vaucluse) and Roquemaure (Gard) and piloted by an operator on the Bank of the Rhone.
This test mission was performed on behalf of SNCF-Infra, the branch of the SNCF to the maintenance of the network, which is seeking to develop innovative processes to ensure maintenance of the structures.
The UAS used in this experiment as built by Novadem, a local company.
“We are testing if the UAS are able to detect micro-cracks on the structures ‘, says Jean-Jacques Thomas, responsible for innovation and research at SNCF Infra. The company is also considering night flights to prevent theft of signal cables, but that is apparently still three of four years away, according to Nicolas Pollet,in charge of the UAS project at SNCF Infra.
Source: Le Figaro