18.10.2021 | Press release

AINGURA IIoT leads the Top-rated consortium in the innovative public procurement process for the "R&D services contract for the development of solutions in the field of bridge and viaduct inspection" published by CDTI and whose beneficiary is ADIF

The proposal submitted by FAI4CIM (Federated Artificial Intelligence for Comprehensive Infrastructure Maintenance), a Temporary Business Association (from UTE. in Spanish), lead by AINGURA IIOT, S.L., ARDANUY INGENIERIA, S.A. and UNIVERSIDAD POLITÉCNICA DE MADRID, with the important collaboration of Spanish companies and institutions such as UNIVERSITAT POLITÈCNICA DE CATALUNYA, UNIVERSIDAD DE CASTILLA LA MANCHA, GRANDE DEVELOPMENT, S.L., BARCELONA SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER and TITANIUM INDUSTRIAL SECURITY; has been the most valued in the tender call for Innovative Public Procurement managed by the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) and whose end user is the Spanish Administrator of Railway Infrastructures (ADIF). The granted proposal title is "CONTRATO DE SERVICIOS DE I+D PARA EL DESARROLLO DE SOLUCIONES EN EL ÁMBITO DE LA INSPECCIÓN DE PUENTES Y VIADUCTOS " (R&D SERVICES CONTRACT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOLUTIONS IN THE FIELD OF BRIDGE AND VIADUCT INSPECTION) (CPP 03/2021 AB (DCCPI / OCPI) file, Lot 1).

Twelve proposals from companies or first-level technological groups have attended this tender. Only 6 proposals have passed the technical cut and hardly the best 4 have been selected, with FAI4CIM ranked first.

The origin of this tender was the ADIF need for an efficient solution that would replace, or at least complement, the visual inspections of bridges that are carried out to comply with current regulations. After conducting a preliminary market research, it was seen that there were no commercial proposals that would satisfactorily solve the problem. As a result, it was decided to launch an Innovative Public Procurement process for the development of a prototype that met the technical requirements and functional of ADIF.

The FAI4CIM proposal presents an innovative solution that responds to the challenges posed by ADIF regarding the optimization of the maintenance of bridges and viaducts described in the specifications. The main concept handled is the Federated Continuous Monitoring, developed ad-hoc to comply (in general in a novel way) with all the technical and functional requirements set by ADIF.

FAI4CIM proposes the development of a Solution based on data stream artificial intelligence-based analysis that allow Detecting possible anomalies of bridge behavior, to later Identify the damage in order to Evaluate the situation and make decisions about the most appropriate maintenance actions.

The role of Aingura IIoT is to use an Edge Computing architecture (or computing linked to the object of monitoring) based on data acquisition through CPS (Cyber-physical System) of different types (fixed and portable), and which are treated in a HPC (High Performance Computing) computing node installed in the infrastructure, in which Machine Learning algorithms are executed to develop the Analysis and Decision-Making functions. Additionally, these HPC nodes can work collaboratively (Federated) with each other, sharing learning and making the whole work as a single supercomputer. Finally, the information is consolidated in a control center using Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodologies, creating a digital twin of the entire managed infrastructure.

The challenge is to reduce by approximately 50% the cost of maintenance due to the intervention on bridges and viaducts in the Spanish railway network, mainly, increasing the life cycle of the product; eliminating 75% of preventive actions (only go when the system warns of a possible problem) and avoiding 20% of operational stoppages due to intervention. It also facilitates the improvement of the design procedures (new materials and structures) and processes.

Within the technical assessment, it has been highlighted that the proposal "addresses an important part of the functional requirements in an innovative way", resulting "of an innovative nature", and that it has been carried out with "Exhaustive compliance with the technical requirements". It is also indicated that a “highly structured and detailed description of the planned tasks, as well as the dedication, experience and complementarity of the work team” has been made and that it presents an “excellent adaptation to the project of the technical and material resources of each member of the UTE”, among other points.

Aingura will develop the HPC node, the communication system between the CPS and HPC nodes, and all the algorithms associated with HPC. The previous work, a challenging collaborative effort in 2020 carried out with our American partner OXYS Corp for the state of Massachusetts, validated the application of the technologies proposed by Aingura for the early detection of anomalies in the health of bridges and viaducts, and served as the basis for the development of this proposal.

The works will begin immediately, with a duration of 18 months and an award amount, if the three phases of the tender are exceeded, of € 1.325.000.

More information: https://bit.ly/2XnFHEp