Enabling Intelligent Robotic Visual Inspection in the Railway Industry with Generative AI

The use of robotics and generative AI has the potential to increase automation of industrial inspection processes, leading to improved asset management and significant cost savings. This paper describes how vision language models can be used to process image data acquired by robots to perform inspection and streamline the maintenance response. The application of this technology is considered with respect to deploying robotics for visual inspection of railway assets. Whilst there are some industry specific constraints and benefits, the general concepts presented should be readily applicable to other asset intensive industries.