Railroad safety has become a pressing issue, with recent news highlighting the importance of maintaining and inspecting rail cars.

In a recent interview, Jeffrey Necciai (pictured, left), the chief technology officer at Duos Technologies Inc., shed light on a groundbreaking solution that combines artificial intelligence and real-time edge computing to revolutionize rail car inspection.

Duos Technologies has developed comprehensive rail car inspection portals that use high-resolution imaging and AI algorithms to identify defects and anomalies in moving trains, providing rail car inspectors with a faster and more accurate way to assess safety.

“If I’m going to inspect the train physically, that train has to be stopped,” Necciai explained. “That’s what we call dwell time. What we’re trying to do for the railroads is eliminate or limit dwell time as much as possible. Most of the anomalies can be detected remotely just using visualization and thereby decrease dwell time, increase safety and that’s the target of the solution.”

Necciai and Alison Biers (right), the director of product marketing for edge solutions at Dell Technologies Inc., spoke with theCUBE industry analyst Dave Vellante, at Dell Technologies World, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the revolutionary advancements in railroad safety using AI and edge computing. (* Disclosure below.)

Enhancing rail car inspection: The role of AI

Duos Technologies develops and installs rail car inspection portals that utilize AI to provide a 360-degree view of trains traveling at track speed. By creating high-resolution detailed images of the top, sides and undercarriage of the rail car and using AI to automatically identify defects and anomalies, the technology streamlines the inspection process, making it faster and more accurate for rail car inspectors.

The rail car inspection portal resembles a car wash, with a steel canopy over the track to create a controlled environment for imaging. Underneath the canopy, an array of line scan and area scan cameras, precision optics, lighting systems and sensors scan the train and capture high-resolution images in real time. The captured images and data are processed on-site in an edge data center.

“That array of servers and storage technology is right there,” Necciai added. “It’s all environmentally controlled and secured the way it should be. We don’t have to worry about back hauling information … because the size of the images and the size of the data that we’re back hauling would be way too large to get it in a timely fashion.”

Dell’s role in enabling edge computing

Dell Technologies has played a pivotal role in enabling the implementation of edge-computing solutions. Dell focuses on simplifying the edge and offering best-in-class infrastructure, expertise in vertical solutions and validated designs, according to Biers, including the company’s Project Frontier and the edge operations software platform, which help customers simplify their edge and drive innovation.

“What’s really amazing about it is that you can begin to see those data and insights and aggregate no matter where that infrastructure is deployed.” Biers stated. “Providing customers with access to their data in a real-time fashion really creates game-changing opportunities for them to unlock new innovation and see trends and make decisions that they never knew possible before.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Dell Technologies World:

(* Disclosure: Dell Technologies Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE