Norway: The Railchap solution was unveiled at Campus Nyland, a testing and training centre in Oslo. The homologation process is currently underway, following which the machine will be deployed by the rail infrastructure operator Bane NOR.
The Railchap was designed to improve accuracy and save time on track inspection, switches in particular. The developers, German Siemens Mobility and Norwegian Railway Robotics, state that now railway maintenance will be six times less time-consuming and 80% more cost-efficient in comparison with manual inspection.
The Railchap developed together with Siemens for track inspection. Source: Lukasz Malinowski/X.
The prototype weighs 50 to 60 kg, depending on the number of measuring devices installed. The machine can move autonomously at a speed of 20 km/h while being controlled remotely.
The South Korean operator Korail has previously introduced its own track inspection robot. A similar solution is also being developed by NIIAS, Russian Railways’ research institute.
