- Category: Members News
- 2024-09-10
Timely and accurate health diagnosis of infrastructure is critical to maintaining the safety and functionality of rail and road networks.
Using advanced inSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) technology, Ineco has developed the InecoSAR service to provide a comprehensive health diagnosis of rail and road infrastructure and its surroundings based on satellite imagery.
Use case description
INECO is a Spanish public engineering and consultancy company of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, specialised in the fields of mobility and digitalisation.
InecoSAR offers an innovative approach to diagnosing the health of rail and road infrastructure. Using inSAR technology, the service can analyse and predict the medium-term behaviour of the terrain and structures. This capability is essential to ensure the long-term safety and reliability of transport networks.
To provide accurate monitoring and diagnostic services, InecoSAR uses data from Copernicus and its Earth Ground Monitoring Service (EGMS), which show the hight and speed of terrain movements with centimetre-accuracy, allowing to both assess and foresee soil movements around the transport infrastructure.
InecoSAR is an on-demand service that can be tailored to the needs of different infrastructure managers. Potential customers of the service could be the General Directorate of Roads of the Spanish Ministry of Transport or the Spanish Railway Infrastructure Administration (ADIF), as well as other entities in charge of infrastructure management.
Challenges addressed by the space-based service
The use of inSAR service allows INECO to addresses several challenges to critical infrastructure management:
- Personnel and funds availability: Traditional in-situ assessment campaigns are costly and resource intensive.
- Need for timely information to evaluate the feasibility of new infrastructure: When evaluating and planning new infrastructure, transport network managers must be able to quickly access reliable and up-to-date information on terrain conditions, risks (such as landslides or slopes), and surrounding assets.
- Need for reliable and up-to-date data for maintenance works: Transport network managers need to focus interventions where they are most needed. Hence, they require data on terrain movements and conditions that is up-to-date and comparable over time. Such information must be presented in a form that is easy to access and to use.
Benefits of the space-based service
The use of InecoSAR brings numerous benefits to the entire infrastructure management cycle:
- Cost savings: InecoSAR significantly reduces monitoring costs by providing remote monitoring capabilities. InecoSAR minimises the reliance on costly in-situ resources and monitoring campaigns, resulting in significant savings in the design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure.
- Improvements in decision-making: The service provides accurate and reliable data, enabling infrastructure managers to take informed decisions based on real-time insights, hence allowing them to plan intervention measures where they are most needed. In addition, InecoSAR ensures optimal placement and design of infrastructure based on detailed terrain analysis.
- Environmental analysis: The service allows for a detailed analysis of the infrastructure’s surroundings.
- Enhanced Safety: By predicting potential problems and providing continuous monitoring, the service improves the safety and reliability of transport networks.
Implementation Timeline
The InecoSAR service was implemented in 2023 and has already been applied to rail and road infrastructure in Spain. Continuous development and evolution of the tool is underway to extend its capabilities and further improve its efficiency.
Intended users
- Road and highway infrastructure managers
- Railway infrastructure managers
- Civil protection services
- Land managers
- Urban planners
Conclusion
InecoSAR represents a significant step forward in the field of infrastructure management. By harnessing the power of inSAR technology, Ineco is providing a service that not only reduces maintenance costs, but also improves the safety, reliability and efficiency of rail and road networks. As the service evolves, it promises to become an indispensable tool for infrastructure managers to ensure the long-term health and functionality of critical transport infrastructure.
