Train-borne LiDAR Data Capture & Processing

Cordel is an agile SME innovator creating safer, more efficient and sustainable railways around the world. We provide cost-effective hardware, software and AI-enabled infrastructure monitoring solutions for international railways.

We automate capture from any rail vehicle, accurately geo-locating LiDAR & imaging (forward-facing video) data (and we federate position data for 3rd party datasets). After one pass at linespeed, we can deliver Network Rail-approved Structure Gauging and OLE Geometry Height and Stagger measurements, and a wealth of other Use Cases (ballast profile, vegetation, level crossings, conductor rail surveys, asset management, etc.).

For Australian railways, we deliver vegetation volumetric assessments and heat mapping as business as usual (from a geometry measurement vehicle)

For US railroads we deliver clearance, ballast profiling and stone requirements assessments (from in-service locomotives).

On-going UK capture includes Class 165 passenger trains in normal service and vehicles within NR’s current yellow fleet (DBSO vehicles and Visual Inspection Units). We deploy our automated AI processing pipeline to produce monitoring that can be relied on for Intelligent Asset Management.

We have worked together with Transport for London to improve our positioning within GNSS-denied environments (e.g. tunnels) by using various speed sensor sources aiding dead-reckoning with our IMU.

Network Rail also relies on the Cordel Connect platform to integrate 3rd party datasets and add QA - we deliver the National Gauging Database (RGDS) in a 6.5 year contract we won in a competitive tender.

Skills & Strengths:

• Cordel is creating safer, more efficient and sustainable railways around the world.

• Hardware approvals – The Cordel data capture equipment has been approved against all relevant EN standards to allow fitment on any (passenger / freight / on-track plant / maintenance) rolling stock.

• Data quality approvals – Cordel has gained full approvals from Network Rail for the measured IM datasets we deliver. Please get in touch to see our certificates!

• End user understanding – Cordel has in-house railway engineering and asset manager experience, so we can optimise the value we add. We already deliver Network Rail’s definitive source of the truth for the National Gauging Database (the Railway Gauging Data Solution, RGDS) to over 800 NR-authorised users (including 3rd parties).

• Cordel Wave LiDAR - Our modular unmanned (fit-and-forget) Class 1 LiDAR and video capture system has proven installations on a variety of rail vehicles (in-service passenger trains, freight locos, road-rail vehicles and dedicated measurement/ maintenance trains). The 32-channel LiDAR system is able to capture the railway infrastructure with sufficient granularity and to a high level of accuracy following a single pass at speed.

• Cordel Locate – Our trainborne location module gives us run-on-run repeatability, so we readily confirm compliance or identify divergence. We can add accurate on-train geospatial location data to railway linear reference models (e.g. NR’s Infrastructure Network Model, INM) and join datasets from other on-vehicle sensors (including 3rd party).

• Cordel Cloud – Cordel provides the IT and data management infrastructure to capture, transmit, process, store, analyse and integrate open infrastructure monitoring data at scale (typically uploading 110GB LiDAR + Video + trajectory data per sensor per day over cellular / WiFi)

• Cordel Connect – Our browser-based, easy-to-use interface for streaming, viewing, storing and analysing co-located LiDAR and imagery, alongside our output solutions. We can integrate with legacy and 3rd party railway systems data ecosystem, to provide users with a holistic picture.

• AI/ML Platform – Cordel’s in-house expertise, built on our international railway experience, enables development, configuration and deployment of AI at scale, with a 1-month turnaround from capture to solution as standard.

• Innovations pipeline – As an agile SME, we are close to our international railway customers and continuously develop new solutions to add to our core dataset and deliver ever more value to benefit infrastructure managers.

Find out more about us at: https://cordel.ai/