Sercel and AP Sensing launch innovative railway infrastructure monitoring solution

Nantes, France | Feb 8, 2023

Sercel and AP Sensing are pleased to announce the launch of a joint innovative solution for comprehensive railway infrastructure monitoring.

The world’s first Below Ballast Scan (BBS) solution is the result of joint technical work combining AP Sensing’s unique Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technology and Sercel’s comprehensive geophysical solution for near-surface evaluation using DAS data. The joint solution provides insights to help customers understand the roadbed and underlying geology to better manage their geotechnical risks.

The BBS  monitoring solution provides critical data needed for safe railway operations and is an important complement to existing shallow near-surface inspection techniques and rail monitoring. The use of already-existing fiber optic infrastructure, together with extremely long-range evaluation capability, makes the joint Sercel and AP Sensing solution very cost-effective and non-intrusive. Assessment of rail track subsurface using DAS does not interfere with traffic and allows monitoring changes in real time for more predictive planning of maintenance operations, especially in areas with complex geological conditions or high geotechnical risks.  
 

The Below Ballast Scan (BBS) monitoring solution provides critical data needed for safe railway operations.