NDE 4.0 for In-motion Wheel Inspection of a High-Speed Train via a RF Energy Harvesting Module: An Autonomous Cyber-Physical Approach toward the Smart City

摘要

There is a higher necessity for a safe and intelligent railway transportation system as an important foundation for the smart city concept. The need to develop real-time condition monitoring technology for limited access parts of high-speed trains, such as wheels, is an important challenge. This paper develops an Internet of Things (IoT) based nondestructive evaluation (NDE 4.0) platform for autonomous inspection of in-service train wheels. The proposed NDE 4.0 platform consists of a wireless transmission module (WTM) which is used to remotely transfer power from the bogie to its surrounded wheels and also to receive back the data from sensors installed on the axle box of the wheels. The WTM's circuits were designed and simulated in LTSpice software. This paper reveals the great potential of using cyber-physical systems to intelligently manage big data and autonomously control National Railway Networks (NRN).