The increasing demand for improved efficiency and reliability in the rail industry worldwide drives the market for advanced asset and fleet management tools, including remote diagnostics (or prognostics) and better asset planning, offering real value-for-money to operators. Remote monitoring of railway electrification has proved to be a major technical challenge as the AC lomotives are powered at 25kV and travel at speeds up to 350 km/h under all weather conditions. The current measurement systems available have shown limitations due to the requirements of insulation of both their power delivery and data transmission. Their failure has severe consequences and causes a widespread traffic disruption. This project addresses the above challenges by exploiting the ideal insulator nature of the optical fibre itself through integration of optical fibre sensors into the current-collecting pantographs for better monitoring and control. This is further underpinned by the 'Internet of Things' which enables the 'things' (sensors) to exchange data collected via the Internet and supported by effective data processing and implementing intelligent algorithms, allowing a smart transporation network thus to be created for predicting failures, making diagnoses and triggering maintenance.

The increasing demand for improved efficiency and reliability in the rail industry worldwide drives the market for advanced asset and fleet management tools, including remote diagnostics (or prognostics) and better asset planning offering real value-for-money to operators. The focus on safety will also increase: rail automation will help increase efficiency without compromising on safety and thus reduce what could be a major area of rising costs. There are some measurement systems available for monitoring rail electrification systems, for example, by using multiple strain gauges and accelerometers, however their power delivery and data transmission require a careful insulation under such a high voltage condition. This limitation could lead to some extreme scenarios, such as dewirement, thus causing a widespread traffic disruption. This project addresses the above challenge by exploiting the ideal insulator nature of the optical fibre itself through integration of optical fibre sensors into the current-collecting pantographs for remote monitoring, when AC lomotives are powered at 25kV and travel at speeds up to 350 km/h under all weather conditions. The sensor data obtained will be used both for integrated control and for the development of a condition-based maintenance model, to allow better asset and fleet management without comprising on safety. The key objective of this project is to translate the innovative research into a new product that is able to improve the reliability and efficiency and lower the cost of rail operation and maintenance that benefits the large population worldwide.