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Autostrade, what Aspi will do with Ibm and Fincantieri to control bridges, viaducts and tunnels

Autostrade, what Aspi will do with Ibm and Fincantieri to control bridges, viaducts and tunnels

How will the new digital system for the monitoring of motorway infrastructures developed by Autostrade Tech (Aspi) together with Ibm and Fincantieri NexTech work. All the details

“The use of artificial intelligence for the inspection and monitoring of bridges, viaducts and tunnels along the 3 thousand kilometers of network managed by Autostrade per l'Italia (Aspi). For each individual artifact, a sort of digital story can be created over time. It is the heart of the Argo project, which Aspi Tech, the technological arm of Aspi, has developed in collaboration with Ibm and Fincantieri ”.

This is how today's Sole 24 Ore summarizes what Autostrade per l'Italia communicated yesterday with IBM and Fincantieri. Here are all the details.

THE NEW ASPI DIGITAL SYSTEM

The new digital system for monitoring motorway infrastructures, based on IBM Maximo and developed by Autostrade Tech, a technology company of the Autostrade per l'Italia group (Aspi), has been operational since yesterday, together with Ibm and Fincantieri NexTech.

THE USE OF DRONES AND SENSORS FOR BRIDGES, TUNNELS AND VIADUCTS

The new monitoring platform, which will use IBM's artificial intelligence, will make use of Fincantieri NexTech's drones, IoT (Internet of Things) and 3D digital modeling to radically innovate surveillance and monitoring activities for over 4,500 works on the ASPI motorway network, “greatly increasing the efficiency and transparency of these processes”, reads a note from Aspi.

THE ASPI INVESTMENT

The overall investment for the new system is over 60 million euros, entirely allocated by Autostrade per l'Italia.

THE COLLABORATION OF ASPI WITH IBM, FINCANTIERI AND IBM

“The multi-year collaboration signed between Autostrade Tech, Ibm and Fincantieri NexTech also provides that the system can be made available to the market, both in terms of service as a service and on premise”, underlines the Aspi group.

WHAT THE NEW SOFTWARE WILL DO

The new software tracks and manages all the various steps necessary for the maintenance of infrastructures: from the organization and conduct of inspections, to the planning and implementation of maintenance or adaptation activities, according to clear priority criteria shared with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport.

INNOVATIONS EXPLAINED BY ASPI

The innovations brought by the new system are numerous: the inspectors – with high professional qualifications and belonging to third-party engineering companies of international level – will be able to carry out checks on the conditions of each work by accessing in real time, via a tablet, all the information that characterize it: calculations and drawings of the original project and subsequent interventions; scheduled checks and maintenance; material investigations and tests; outcomes and details of previous inspections. A real digital archive, which collects information classified by type and can be consulted through an app for adequate usability in the field. Using the same tablet, the inspector will directly insert all the details and photos taken during the inspection into the new digital system, making them immediately available to the appointed company structures.

HOW THE PLATFORM WILL WORK

The platform has been in use since yesterday on the 430 works of the two motorway sections of Cassino and Bari and will be progressively extended by the end of the year on all the 1943 bridges and 2,000 overpasses of the Autostrade per l'Italia network. During 2021, its application will be extended to the maintenance processes of bridges and overpasses and to all 587 tunnels of the network where, thanks to the Digital Twin, it will be possible to implement an innovative instrumental monitoring model, performed with Industrial IoT sensors by Fincantieri NexTech and state-of-the-art technological solutions, which will make it possible to analyze the progress of the structural engineering parameters of the work, both static and dynamic, and the construction of algorithms for evaluating behavior in operation and during maintenance phases. In the same year, dynamic weighing systems will also be introduced, which will allow both to verify, upon entering the motorway, compliance with the weight limits authorized for Exceptional Transits, and to monitor in real time the behavior of the infrastructures when heavy vehicles pass.

WHAT FINCANTIERI WILL DO

The system is also introducing advanced technologies made available by Fincantieri NexTech, never before used on Italian motorway networks such as the possibility of analyzing a work through a three-dimensional "digital twin", which faithfully reproduces all its characteristics with the '' use of drones equipped with topographic laser-scanners and very high resolution cameras, which create real “tac” of surfaces. A specially developed system will support technicians in the recognition and classification of defects and in scheduling maintenance activities.

THE DETAILS

“The technologies deployed by Autostrade Tech, Ibm and Fincantieri NexTech will also make it possible to experiment, on a scientific level, new models, algorithms and parameters in terms of infrastructure safety. For this purpose, a Technical-Scientific Committee has been set up by Autostrade Tech, in which the Polytechnic Universities of Trento, Turin, Rome, Naples and Milan participate, which has the task of coordinating these experimental activities, defining new operational procedures that will be subsequently agree with MIT. The first research project will be dedicated to the use of the most modern sensors for monitoring the behavior of infrastructures ”, underlines the press release.

THE ANALYSIS OF THE CORRIERE DELLA SERA

"It is clear that it is a license of credibility – Corriere della Sera wrote today – Even more important to show now in view of a corporate reorganization that will lead Autostrade per l'Italia to have a new controlling shareholder – Cassa Depositi – and to new minority shareholders such as the foreign funds Blackstone and Macquarie. It is even more clear that this new digital monitoring system for bridges and tunnels conceived with Ibm and Fincantieri was pushed by the Ministry of Transport led by Paola De Micheli to remedy years of omitted supervision and savings on maintenance.

THE WORDS OF TOMASI DI ASPI

“We are working with great passion and intensity to implement a radical transformation of Autostrade per l'Italia. Technological innovation, digitalization of infrastructures and their management, environmental sustainability and mobility services to connect our networks with the territory are the guidelines that inspire us and that are transforming our company into a European-level integrated mobility operator. It was necessary and fundamental that the first objective achieved concerned the safety of the infrastructures we are managing. I thank the Autostrade Tech team for the work done and Ibm and Fincantieri for the support they have given us. Together we will be able to immediately make the new platform available to a European and international market. It is, in fact, a small Copernican revolution ”, declared the CEO of Autostrade per l'Italia, Roberto Tomasi.

THE COMMENT OF BONO DI FINCANTIERI

The Chief Executive Officer of Fincantieri Giuseppe Bono commented: "This agreement confirms the validity of the strategy to expand our skills, a path that has allowed us over time to strengthen the Group and to always work with leading partners, in this circumstance Autostrade and Ibm. We have an extraordinary wealth of know-how in many areas, matured through the management of very complex processes and projects and therefore we are proud, through the high technological level we express, to contribute to pursuing the goal of increasingly secure networks ". Bono concluded: "In this action we find the great attention of the Government, specifically the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, which closely follows our action and at the service of which we can achieve very important objectives for the growth of the country".


This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/autostrade-cosa-fara-aspi-con-ibm-e-fincantieri-per-controllare-ponti-viadotti-e-gallerie/ on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:33:48 +0000.