Design and Development of a Digital Twin for Monitoring Railway Infrastructure

The aim of this work is to develop a digital twin application to ensure an optimal level of reliability when launching a larger project based on the identification of trains and detection of defects that allow for safe freight transport on spanish trains. The digital twin (DT) framework consists of three parts: the “physical product” which consists of a scanning camera placed on a track gantry, the “virtual product” which includes a model based on real-time data representing the freight car detected by the perception system, and the data flow connections. The camera images will be post-processed through an artificial intelligence detection model (YOLOv8), trained to detect all the elements necessary for the safety of the vehicle and the cargo. Field studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed digital twin framework and its potential to identify railcars and detect defects in freight wagons.