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Mit dem OMICRON-Projekt wird eine intelligente Plattform für das Asset Management von Straßen eingeführt, die darauf ausgelegt ist, die Instandhaltungs- und Inspektionsprozesse von Straßen zu verbessern. Die Plattform konzentriert sich auf vier zentrale Säulen und zielt darauf ab, das Asset Management im Straßenverkehr durch Automatisierung, Robotik und KI zu revolutionieren. Die erste Säule, der modulare Brückenbau, verbessert die Baumethodik von Straßenüberführungen und fördert agiles und digitalisiertes Bauen. Die zweite Säule, die Digitalisierung der Straßeninspektion, nutzt fortschrittliche Technologien wie UAS und V2X-Kommunikation, um die Effizienz und Sicherheit der Inspektionen zu verbessern. Die dritte Säule, die vorausschauende Instandhaltung, nutzt einen Road Digital Twin, um Wartungseingriffe und -ressourcen zu optimieren. Die letzte Säule, intelligente Interventionslösungen, führt eine modulare Roboterplattform für automatisierte Straßeninstandhaltungsaktivitäten ein. Das letztendliche Ziel des Projekts besteht darin, die Instandhaltungskosten zu senken, die Kapazität des Straßennetzes zu erhöhen und die Sicherheit und Vernetzung im Straßenverkehr zu verbessern. OMICRONs innovativer Ansatz und die umfassende Abdeckung der Vermögensverwaltung im Straßenbau machen sie zu einem bedeutenden Fortschritt in diesem Bereich.
KI-Generiert
Diese Zusammenfassung des Fachinhalts wurde mit Hilfe von KI generiert.
Abstract
The OMICRON project develops an Intelligent Road Asset Management Platform integrating a broad portfolio of area specific innovative technologies to enhance the construction, maintenance, renewal and upgrade of the European road network. The project improves the whole asset management pipeline focusing on four pillars: modular construction of bridges, road inspection digitalisation, predictive maintenance and smart execution of intervention actions.
OMICRON’s Intelligent Platform enables the digitalisation and automation of a relevant portfolio of road management tasks which are still very labour intensive. Thereby, OMICRON aims to pave the way to the roads of the future, addressing the reduction of fatal accidents related to maintenance actions, the reduction of traffic disruptions, the reduction of maintenance costs, and the increase in road network capacity.
1 Introduction
Roads, and their integrity, are a foundation for world economic growth. According to Eurostat, 81% of passengers in Europe and 77% of inland freight were transported by road in 2020, the highest for a decade (1). Ireland (99%), Greece (97%) and Spain (96%) were at the top of this list.
This context of high-quality services and maturity has a dark side related to the ageing and necessary upgrading of road infrastructures. A large portion of Europe’s road network was built between the 1960s and 1970s, and its design envisaged a lifetime of 50 years, using technologies that were not as advanced as nowadays. Consequently, significant effort is needed to monitor and maintain road condition to avoid the repercussions of an outdated system. This is not limited to an increase in accidents affecting public safety, but also threatens the welfare of road workers and increases pollution and emissions.
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Given the fact that current inspection and maintenance systems are still very labour-intensive, it is clear that the European road sector needs to improve its inspection, maintenance and management procedures. Industry 4.0, with the rise of robotisation, digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, and Climate Change mitigation, with the aim of reducing emissions, are changing the paradigm of both the technical requirements of roads and the techniques to be used in asset management.
In summary, the sector demands technologies for the management and maintenance of road infrastructure with the following objectives:
To improve road services in terms of safety and connectivity.
To reduce costs derived from the high volume of maintenance activities that will be necessary in the coming years.
To increase the capacity of the network, making a smarter use of it.
To enable sustainable asset management, moving towards decarbonisation following the European Green Deal (2).
The OMICRON project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, addresses the aforementioned needs of road design, construction and maintenance, as it aims to improve road condition throughout its lifecycle, from inspection and data management to maintenance execution.
2 OMICRON’s Intelligent Road Asset Management Platform: From Design to Maintenance Execution
The objective of OMICRON is the development of a portfolio of technologies to comprehensively address the aforementioned challenges. Thus, OMICRON proposes an Intelligent Road Asset Management Platform concept with the aim of automating, robotising, and optimising road management processes. The platform is based on four main pillars (Fig. 1), presented in this section, covering the whole road lifecycle.
1.
Pillar 1. Modular Bridge Construction.
2.
Pillar 2. Road Inspection Digitalisation.
3.
Pillar 3. Predictive Maintenance.
4.
Pillar 4. Smart Intervention Solutions.
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2.1 Modular Bridge Construction
OMICRON aims to enhance the construction methodology of road overpasses. The project specifically addresses hybrid bridges consisting of a central metallic girder connected to symmetric reinforced concrete girders at the sides. The objective is to study and enhance the connections between the metallic and concrete sections in order to propose design guidelines to promote a more effective modular construction of such bridges.
OMICRON has performed a comprehensive study of road overpasses, followed by several monitoring campaigns on bridges of the same type. In a second stage of the study, laboratory tests have been carried out on 1:2 scale prototypes for three solutions designed in the project, using different prestressing, connections, and diaphragm solutions.
The study provides guidelines to improve both the mechanical behaviour of this type of overpass, as well as its manufacturing and construction compared to traditional solutions. Thereby, OMICRON aims to address key industry demands related to agile and digitalised construction, accident prevention, lifecycle management, and traffic impact reduction.
Fig. 1.
OMICRON project concept covering modular construction, digital inspection, predictive maintenance and smart maintenance execution.
Reproduced with permission from the OMICRON consortium, copyright OMICRON, 2024.
OMICRON proposes advanced inspection technologies to avoid maintenance personnel exposure to traffic, enhance network availability through the automation of repetitive tasks, and reduce costs associated to road inspections.
The project develops novel Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to improve the efficiency of current asset inspection processes. Firstly, OMICRON has created a collaborative multi-UAV inspection system. The use and coordination of UAS in inspection processes covering large areas enhances the effectiveness of inspections, increases reliability and process quality, and reduces inspection times. Furthermore, the project is developing Detect and Avoid technologies for drones, which serve as enablers for shared airspace use with other aircrafts (3). The key advantage of integrating these technologies into aerial inspection systems is the ability to conduct remote inspection flights over longer distances and at lower altitudes, allowing the coverage of larger areas. These aerial inspection systems are employed to capture high-quality images and generate 3D infrastructure maps.
OMICRON also develops innovative terrestrial inspection vehicle technologies. The project works on a system integrating a combination of sensors, including a mini laser scanner and other types of vision systems, currently under a patenting process. The objective is to lower the costs of inspection vehicle systems to automatically capture spatial, visual and thermal data, enabling the assessment of pavement condition state.
Finally, OMICRON leverages V2X (vehicle to everything) communications capabilities to coordinate maintenance operations and road users. The efforts are focused on the use of C-ITS (Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems) communication technologies and Road Side Units (RSUs) to provide short-range communications according to European ITS-G5 regulations. Thereby, the control centre gathers information from various sources, including location and maintenance work status, weather or traffic, among others. This information is transmitted to road users via the deployment of standardised C-ITS services.
2.3 Predictive Maintenance
The information captured by OMICRON’s inspection technologies as well as all road data sources are harnessed for the creation of OMICRON's Road Digital Twin (DT). The DT is conceived as a digital replica of the infrastructure in an environment that combines (i) the BIM representation of singular assets, (ii) the GIS representation of linear assets, (iii) dynamic data from infrastructures, and (iv) the information and analysis conducted on this data (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2.
Digital Twin visualisation. Analysis of modes of vibration as a step in the DST.
Reproduced with permission from CEMOSA, copyright CEMOSA, 2025.
These sources of information provide large volumes of data to generate this digital representation of the infrastructure. Thereby, an innovative workflow has been created within the Digital Twin, based on a graph-oriented database, to mimic real road assets in all their relevant aspects, including geometry, condition, and all necessary information for comprehensive analysis.
The necessary processing chains (including different data management, integration, and services layers) have been defined to process and store data from inspection activities and other sources, transforming them into information available in the Digital Twin and the various analysis streams, including the Decision Support Tool (DST).
The goal of OMICRON’s Decision Support Tool is the optimisation of maintenance interventions and resources (4), considering various sources of uncertainty, including asset condition and other operational environmental factors. This system enhances existing intervention planning workflows and aims to establish a stable connection between data collection, information extraction, road network state awareness and automated intervention execution.
The guiding principles of this tool are infrastructure condition prediction, risk assessment, and infrastructure maintenance actions optimisation. Additionally, the system considers traffic impact and resource optimisation making use of the information from the Digital Twin.
OMICRON’s DST is focused on four main interlinked use cases: (i) pavement condition prediction using historical data on road parameters such as IRI, SFC or deflexion; (ii) Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) for bridges applying Artificial Intelligence techniques; (iii) digitalised inspection processing; and (iv) planning and optimisation of maintenance activities.
2.4 Smart Intervention Solutions
The last innovation pillar within the project focuses on the automated and robotic execution of road maintenance activities. OMICRON has developed a Robotic Modular Platform to perform multiple road maintenance actions, building a robust business case for the implementation of robotic processes in labour intensive road tasks. The platform currently undertakes the following maintenance activities, although the modular design of the system enables the adaptation to other tasks in the future (Fig. 3).
1.
Emergency interventions. The platform includes a robotic module for the automated installation or replacement of safety barriers.
2.
Rutinary interventions. The system supports these actions from two perspectives. First of all, concerning road safety, the system enables the automated installation of signalling and cones. Additionally, a module has been developed with the objective of cleaning road and tunnel signals and lighting.
3.
Extraordinary interventions. The platform includes modules for (i) signalling installation during construction works; (ii) laser-based removal of lane markings (avoiding the use of methods like black paint); and (iii) sealing of pavement cracks.
The robotic platform has been designed to be teleoperated using Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) systems, depending on the type of intervention. Thus, VR and AR applications have been carefully selected with the aim of reducing workers’ exposure to hazardous situations while assuring maintenance action efficiency.
Fig. 3.
Robotic Modular Platform test moving a cone.
Reproduced with permission from Tekniker, copyright Tekniker, 2024.
The overall objective of OMICRON is to promote the digitalisation and safety of the European road network through the implementation of the Intelligent Asset Management Platform presented in this article. The demonstration and evaluation of the platform is being performed in three stages with the aim of reaching TRL 7 in various pilots in Portugal and Spain, including a final TRL 7 demonstrator at the A1 in Italy.
OMICRON aims to have a significant impact on road asset management, which can be summarised in four main areas: (i) the reduction of fatal accidents related to maintenance actions; (ii) the reduction of traffic disruptions; (iii) the reduction of maintenance costs; and (iv) the increase in road network capacity.
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Eurostat: 77% of Inland Freight Transported by Road in 2020. Eurostat, Brussels (2022)
2.
European Commission: The European Green Deal. Brussels (2019)
3.
Alarcón, V., et al.: Benchmark on real-time long-range aircraft detection for safe RPAS operations. In: ROBOT2022: Fifth Iberian Robotics Conference (2022)
4.
Consilvio, A., et al.: Towards a digital twin-based intelligent decision support for road maintenance. In: AIIT 3rd International Conference on Transport Infrastructure and Systems, TIS ROMA 2022 (2022)
