Starting today, at the Advanced Factories fair, the Eurecat technology centre is exhibiting a system created in collaboration with Masats in the area of predictive maintenance. This system incorporates artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics to anticipate errors in the operation of public transport vehicle access systems, with doors and ramps, developed by the company.
The use of digital technologies in this area ‘makes it possible to increase equipment availability, reduce vehicle breakdowns, increase reliability and optimise life-cycle costs’, which has a ‘strong impact on the company as well as end users’, points out Xavier Domingo, the director of Eurecat’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Unit.
Specifically, the system monitors various door operation parameters, such as motor consumption, push-buttons and status variables, among others, in each opening and closing operation, and artificial intelligence is able to identify whether there are anomalies that require a maintenance action.
The system ‘collects data during the day from all the doors and ramps of the bus fleet and issues a daily report that indicates whether anomalies have been detected in the operation of any of the embedded systems in any vehicle’, explains Francesc Bonada, head of the Industrial Artificial Intelligence Line in Eurecat’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Unit.
Taking better-informed decisions ‘allows the company to whittle down the maintenance actions and spares just to situations where these are necessary, which also has an environmental impact’, adds Bonada.
The system enables Masats’ customers ‘to reduce the product life-cycle cost, at the same time as it dramatically increases vehicle availability and their reliability’, says Jordi Pujol, Masats’ head of R&D.
Manufacture of lighter and more sustainable doors with composite materials
The company and the technology centre have also taken part in the Carbodin project, as part of the European Shift2Rail call, developed in collaboration with various companies, in the context of which lighter and more sustainable doors have been manufactured using composite materials.