08.06.2017 12:00:00 | Head of LocoTech Aleksey Belinsky: “Transition to the "smart repair" of locomotives needs be carried out in cooperation with Russian Railways

LocoTech Group introduces the intelligent data analysis system (Smart Locomotive project) that will allow to move towards smart repairs of traction rolling stock of Russian Railways in the near future. This was stated by the Director General of LocoTech Aleksey Belinsky on the Strategic Partnership 1520 Forum in Sochi.

The use of intelligent data analysis systems is not a requirement, but the need and the trend of the modern market. And transition to innovative economy is impossible without the introduction of new technologies in transportation and in the machine building. We create intelligent data analysis system to improve the performance of the locomotive complex of Russia. And we expect to cooperate with our key partner - Russian Railways,” said Alexey Belinsky.

Locomotive Technologies is the largest provider of locomotive fleet maintenance services in network 1520. The company annually serves more than 15 thousands locomotives. Smart Locomotive system (developed together with the Clover Group company) is created based on the intelligent data analysis platform Clover IIoT where neural network training technologies are applied. The analysis of international experience, including General Electric and Siemens, has also been conducted during the system creation.

Alexey Belinsky pointed out that about 5% of information reaches the decision maker, the rest is lost or distorted during transmission. To increase the percentage of valid data and improve the decision-making process it is important to convert the production information into useful data. After this the locomotive repair complex will be able to move from a "event consequences removal” model to "event management" model.

At the same time, the transition to smart repair is held back by a number of factors: only a quarter of the RZD fleet is equipped with a modern microprocessor control and diagnostic systems, the lack of transparent rules and standards for the transfer and use of data on the equipment operation parameters, single information space of the stakeholders and the regulatory base for transition to "as is” repair.

The introduction of the intelligent repair system will increase the speed of decision-making and improve the quality of process operations, will reduce the number of equipment failures and increase the technical readiness factor of the locomotive fleet. This will reduce the unscheduled maintenance and improve the efficiency of stocks and human resources management in general.

In the future, the system itself will be able to determine the probability of equipment assemblies failure and predict equipment failure within the next 100 hours, calculate the residual assembly service life, identify the conditions preceding the equipment failure and operation mode violations.

The project aims at creating a fleet of  smart locomotives, while tracking the status of each unit of traction rolling stock online. Thus, it will be possible to identify the conditions preceding the failure, without waiting for serious breakdowns and heavy repair to occur.

The smart locomotive system is now being actively introduced on the network. At the end of May it has been put into trial operation in service locomotive depots, servicing the diesel locomotives of 2,3TE116U,  TEP70BS, TEP70U series. The system analyses 260 parameters of equipment operation of locomotives 32TE116U and 3TE116U, and for diesel locomotives TEP70U and TEP70BS - over 300 parameters. At the same time, as shown by the pilot project, the system is able to detect more than 60 types of violations in the operation of the equipment and locomotive operating modes.