2017 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM)
Sheraton Arabella Park Hotel, Munich, Germany, July 3-7, 2017
Automatic Inspection of Railway Carbon Strips Based on Multi-Modal
Visual Information
Erika Di Stefano*, Carlo Alberto Avizzano*, Massimo Bergamasco*,
Paolo Masini**, Mauro Menci**, Davide Russo**
Abstract— Electric rail vehicles are driven by the current
collected from the electrical lines of the railway catenary
system. For this purpose, trains are equipped with a current
collector (the pantograph) that comes in contact with the wires
by means of a pair of carbon strips. The sliding movement
along the wires subjects the carbon strips to wear and damage
so that frequent inspection is essential to ensure the train and
catenary safety. In this paper we describe an automatic visual
inspection system, made of a 3D laser scanner and a 2D high
resolution camera, which is able to automatically determine
the health state of the railway contact strips thanks to a
sophisticated data processing tool. The system collects color
and geometrics information on the carbon strips and performs
several automated assessments both on the 3D and 2D data. For
each test, the system provides an index and decides between
three different levels of wear (low, medium, high) to support
the human operator in inspection and maintenance decisions.
Experimental results reveal the effectiveness of the system,
comparing the human judgment with the automated analysis.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electric rail vehicles are actuated thanks to a system of
overhead contact lines from which the current is collected
by means of a specific collector positioned on the roof,
the pantograph. The pantograph comes in contact with the
electrical lines through a pair of carbon contact strips which
continuously slide along the wires during the train travel.
To maintain a stable contact, a pneumatic system provides a
contact force in the range of [80 − 200]N which increases
with the train speed [1]. Hence, since the strips are subject
to high friction and mechanical shocks, they wear out and/or
get damaged over time [2]. In fact, the contact strips tend
to shrink, splinter and lose material. Damaged contact strips
can shatter the electrical transmission and increase the risk of
catenary rupture. Therefore, frequent inspection is essential
for the correct operation of the system. Railway companies
periodically carry out manual inspection trough human op-
erators. Nevertheless, manual inspection operations can be
expensive in terms of time and costs. Indeed, the train has
to be directed in opportune maintenance sheds and travels
are interrupted for the whole inspection time. Furthermore,
human inspection is based on subjective considerations and
manual measurements can be subject to human error and
result inaccurate or neglect important details that can be
pointed out by deeper computational analysis.
There are some previous works that face the problem of
carbon-strip inspection and monitoring. Some of them make
use of visual sensors, while others employ other tools. In
*PERCeptual RObotics Laboratory, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
** Trenitalia S.p.A.
978-1-5090-6000-9/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
[3] the wear of the contact strip is predicted by monitoring
the running distance of the pantograph as well as the DC
component of the locomotive current. In [4] and [5] the
authors apply image processing methods and analyse the
interaction points between the pantograph and the catenary
to detect defects and anomalies for fault diagnosis. In [6] a
triangulation laser is employed to scan the strips and obtain
a depth profile to compare to a reference pattern, in order
to compute the maximum wear. In [7] an RGB camera is
used and the authors exploit the color histograms and other
statistical parameters extracted from the image and give them
to a statistical classifier in order to classify the type of
damage. In [8] the authors make use of the ensemble of
a lateral and a frontal 2D camera. They carry out image
segmentation and morphological operations to individuate
worn areas of the contact strips. [9] is an attempt to improve
the work in [6] in terms of normalization of the measures
with respect to a global frame. At last, in [10] the authors
aim to detect defects through the Wavelet Transform of the
depth profiles.
Each of the previously mentioned works seems to face a
single aspect of the wear. The work in [6] focuses on the
strip wear in terms of thickness, in [7] they attempt to
localize material defects by recurring to statistical classifiers
(which always need a consistent training data set), while
in [10] the authors focus only on crackpoints detection.
Furthermore, the use of mono-modal data limits the number
of possible defects that can be detected, since, for example,
a 2D image is not as suitable as a 3D scan to establish the
thickness of the strip or, on the contrary, a 2D image is
more suitable for detecting extended regions of wear from
the cromatic contrasts. Differently than the previous works,
our work wants to deal with all the aspects that concern
the damage and wear of the carbon strips, exploiting multi-
modal data (2D and 3D), from which we are able to extract
a lot of information and provide details for each type of
damage/defect. The measurement system consists of a highly
accurate 3D triangulation laser scanner and a high resolution
2D camera. The data provided are input to a sophisticated
processing tool which provides several information about the
strip wear condition.
The aim of our automatic visual monitoring system is to
provide the results of each applied analysis and accordingly
decide a level of wear of the contact strips, supporting the
human operators in the train monitoring and maintenance
process. In fact, in this way useless manual inspections can
be avoided and, on the other hand, dangerously damaged
178
pieces can be replaced once the system has detected a high
level of wear. The human operators are therefore continu-
ously supported by an automated monitoring and inspection
tool. The present work belongs to a researh project that is
being carried out between Scuola Superiore Sant?Anna and
Trenitalia S.p.A. cooperation and plans to develop a full set
of wayside inspection tools to monitor the health status of
trains.
The remaining of the paper is structured as follows: in
section II we illustrate the measurement setup, in section
III we explain the different processing and analysis applied
on the scanned points, in section IV we explain the different
processing and analysis applied on the 2D images, in section
V we show the experimental results and in section VI we
discuss the conclusions and future work.

II. MEASUREMENT SETUP

The measurement setup is illustrated in figure (1). The
train is meant to pass under a suitably arranged portal,
equipped in the upper part with the laser scanner and the
camera, as shown in the figure. As the train passes under Fig. 1. Inspection portal and capturing system.
the portal, a trigger signal powers on the sensors in order
to start the capturing. The laser scanner collects a series of
profiles that produce a pointcloud with a resolution in depth
z of about 1 mm, in the transverse direction x less than 1
mm and a resolution in the travel direction y that depends
on the scanning rate and train speed as follows:
Fig. 2. Carbon strip mounted on the metallic carrier. The baseline (dashed
vt line) is obtained from the metallic base at the sides of the strip. The
∆y = (1) reference axes are in green.
Rs
where vt represents the train speed and Rs is the ac-
quisition rate of the triangulation laser scanner. Once the
capturing is carried out, a detection algorithm is applied to
identify the pantograph bow, determine its attitude angles
and accordingly individuate the region occupied by the
carbon strips [11]. In this way we can extract the carbon
strips both from the 3D pointcloud and the 2D image.
Since the carbon strip rests on a metallic carrier that can
be approximately considerated unworn, each point measure- Fig. 3. Possible defects of the carbon strip. Top image: Wear in thickness.
ment is referred to the metal base protruding from the sides Middle image: Presence of cracks. Bottom image: Chipped regions and
of the strips as shown in figure (2). material loss.

III. PROCESSING OF THE 3D POINTS

Carbon strips are mostly subject to three different types of
irregularities: they can wear in thickness (regularly or not), 0.02
0.01
0.7
0.8

present surface cracks or they can be chipped and subject 0.6

z

0.5

0.1 0.4

to material loss. Figure (3) illustrates these three kinds of 0.05

0.2
0.3

possible defects. y 0

0
0.02
0.01
0.1

0.7
0.8

In figure (4) we can see three different scans of carbon

0.6
z

0.5
0.1
0.4

strips. The first one is taken from a new, unworn carbon strip, 0.05
0.2
x
0.3

0.8

the second one is the scan of a slightly damaged, but thinned 0 0.1
y
0 0.7

0.6

strip, whereas the third one belongs to a deeply worn and 0.02
0.01
0 0.5
z

0.4

damaged sample. We can see how the strip is reconstructed 0.08

0.06
0.04 0.2
x
0.3

0.02

in width by juxtaposing the different depth profiles. The

data processing and analysis tests that we carry out on the Fig. 4. Example pointclouds of carbon strips. Top image: Pointcloud of
obtained 3D points are described in the following sections. a new strip. Middle image: Pointcloud of a slightly damaged, but thinned
strip. Bottom image: pointcloud of a deeply worn and damaged strip.

179
A. Thickness
The obtained point cloud allows to establish the local where STD indicates the standard deviation of the thickness
thickness (T (p) = z(x, y)) of every point on the carbon applied in a local area of the carbon strip.
strip. The first information we want to obtain is the average B. Thickness Derivative
thickness, since, for a perfect functionning of the electrical
The smoothness indicator is important but not sufficient to
transmission, it must be over a specific threshold value.
detect relevant issues in carbon strip profiles. An important
For this purpose we take the depth z profiles of the strip
aspect that concerns the damage of carbon strips is the
and compute the mean of them. The resulting mean profile
presence of crackpoints and surface discontinuities, caused
represents the average thickness of the strip:
by material loss and abrupt impacts. One way to individuate
such points is by differentiation and thresholding. If we
T avg = mean T (p) (2) denote with cd = (xd , zd ) the crackpoints, td the threshold
p∈strip
value and δ an arbitrary small value, we compute the set
Figure (5) shows the average profile obtained from the
scan of the slightly worn, but thinned test strip shown in
n   o
 > td and  d2 z2  ≤ δ
 dz 
C d = (x, z) s.t  dx dx
(7)
figure (4) and the reference profile obtained from the scan of
the new, unworn strip. The figure points out the gap between If the test profile derivative exceeds the threshold ampli-
the reference and the test profile. tude, we are in the presence of a crackpoint. Figure (6) shows
an example test profile obtained from the scan of the deeply
0.016
Average Thickness

Reference profile
worn and cracked strip shown in figure (4) and the individ-
Test profile

0.014
uation of crackpoints through the differentiation method. In
0.012
the end we compute the number of total crackpoints N cd
0.01
resulting from each profile of the strip:
X
z[m]

0.008

N cd = cd (8)
0.006

i
0.004

0.002

× 10 -3 Individuation of Crackpoints by Differentiation

12
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
x[m]

10

Crackpoint

Fig. 5. Comparison of test mean profile (in blue) thickness with reference
profile (in red) thickness. 6
z [m], dz/dx

Besides the average thickness, we are interested in the 2

Threshold

minimum and the maximum thickness: 0

-2

T min = min T (p) (3) -4

z Profile
dz/dx

p∈strip 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

x [m]
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

T max = max T (p) (4) Fig. 6. Individuation of crackpoints through differentiation of the depth
p∈strip
profile. The figure shows the test z profile (in blue), its derivative (in green),
These values are commonly thresholded to detect the the threshold amplitude lines (magenta dashed lines) and the black circles
are the individuated crackpoints.
overcome of limits.

Another relevant index is the symmetry index, which aims C. Frequency Spectrum
at detecting smooth irregularities among the left/right area Another strong mathematical tool that can help us to
of the carbon strip and can be a symptom af an irregular investigate the spatial trend of the carbon strip is the spatial
pressure or misalignement of the pantograph. If we set a Discrete Fourier Transform (sDFT). The sDFT allows us to
coordinate x = 0 in the center of the carbon strip, we have: compute the frequency content of the single depth profiles.
Z Intuitively, a rippled profile presents high frequency com-
T sym = xT (x, y)dxdy (5) ponents, whereas in a homogeneous profile low frequencies
x,y prevail. In addition to derivative methods the sDFT allows
to compute cracks unregarding to their position in space,
Lastly we consider the smoothness index as an indicator of
and benefits from the integral formulation to reduce possible
the smoothness of the wearing as a local/punctual variation
errors due to noise components of the meaure (to which
among the lateral geometry:
the derivative function is instead
 very sensitive). Once the
amplitude spectrum P (f ) of the test profile has been
T smt (r) = max( STD (T (x, y))) (6)
x xi∈[x−r,x+r] obtained, we compute
180
 Autocorrelation Functions
1
Z Test profile autocorrelation coefficients
Reference profile autocorrelation coefficients
 
af = P (f ) df (9) 0.8

f >tf
0.6

where tf is the threshold frequency abscissa, which is

Autocorrelation Coefficients
0.4

considered to be the maximum relevant frequency for the

spectrum of the reference profile. Then we sum the results 0.2

for all np profiles of the test carbon strip: 0

np -0.2
X 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Lag

Af = af (10)
i=1
Fig. 8. Normalized autocorrelation coefficients: coefficients of the refer-
Figure (7) shows the amplitude spectrum of the previous ence profile (in red) and coefficients of the test profile (in blue). The test
example profile compared to the reference pattern and the profile coefficients suggest the presence of discontinuities in the profile.
coordinate of the threshold frequency.

× 10 -3 z Profile Amplitude Spectrum of the ci crosscorrelation coefficients whose value is under

Reference profile spectrum

12
Test profile spectrum

a threshold tc , i.e ai < tc :

10
X
8
Nc = ci (13)
i
|P(f)| [m]

Crosscorrelation Function
1

Threshold frequency
2

0.8

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
-1
f [m ]
0.6
Crosscorrelation Coefficients

0.4

Fig. 7. Frequency content of the z profile: amplitude spectrum of the

reference profile (in red), amplitude spectrum of the test profile (in blue) 0.2

and threshold frequency (dashed magenta line).

0

D. Autocorrelation Function -0.2

0 5 10 15 20
Lag
25 30 35 40

The autocorrelation of each strip profile is also an indi-

cator of its spatial trend [12]. Autocorrelation coefficients Fig. 9. Crosscorrelation with the reference new carbon strip pointcloud.
that are near the value 1 and that vary slightly suggest an In red: resulting normalized coefficients for the new strip pointcloud. In
blue: resulting normalized coefficients for the test strip pointcloud. The
homogeneous profile, whereas low correlation values and test pointcloud coefficients suggest the presence of discontinuities on the
varying ones are a symptom of a rippled, discontonuous surface.
profile. If ai is the generic autocorrelation coefficient such
that ai < ta , where ta is a specific threshold value, for each
F. Wavelet Transform
profile we count the number
X Another way to individuate surface cracks of different
na = ai (11) entities is to convolve the depth profile with a specific mother
i wavelet and investigate the resulting transform. This method
and then sum up the total number N a of all np profiles: allows us to individuate crackpoints in a ”space-frequency”
domain, i.e at different scales of detail [13]. Our experiments
np revealed the 8-th level transform of the profiles convolved
X
Na = na (12) with a ”db13” moher wavelet to be the most significant and
i=1 efficient to point out crackpoints. Indeed, rippled regions of
Figure (8) shows the autocorrelation coefficients of the the curve correspond to such points (figure (10)). Once again,
test profile compared to those of the reference profile. we consider a threshold tw , count the number of points cw
where the WT exceeds the threshold and sum up the total
E. Crosscorrelation Function number N cw for all np profiles of the strip:
In order to understand how similar or dissimilar to the X
reference pointcloud the pointcloud under exam is, the test N cw = cw (14)
pointcloud is crosscorrelated with the reference pointcloud i
[12]. As in the previous case, we count the total number N c
181
 × 10 4 Intensity Histogram
Individuation of Crackpoints through Wavelet Transform
0.012
3 Test Strip Image Histogram
Reference Strip Image Histogram
0.01

RGB Image Strip n°7

0.008

2.5
z [m]

0.006

0.004
Crackpoint

0.002 2

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
sample point

× 10 -4 8-th Level Transform

8 1.5

4 Threshold

2 1

-2

-4
0.5

-6

-8

-10
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0
sample point
0 50 100 150 200 250

Fig. 10. Individuation of crackpoints through Wavelet Decomposition. Fig. 12. Image histogram. In red: New, unworn strip image histogram. In
Top: z profile and individuated crackpoints circled in black. Bottom: 8-th blue: Worn strip image histogram.
level WT and threshold amplitude (magenta dashed line)

B. Cromatic Derivative
IV. PROCESSING OF THE 2D IMAGES
We assume that material defects such as cracks and chip-
Figure (11) shows three example 2D images. As we can pings are defined by cromatic discontinuities. These points
see, the first one shows a new, unworn carbon strip, the can be individuated as for the depth profile by differentiation
second one is the image of a slightly damaged, but thinned of the single image rows and by thresholding of the resulting
strip, whereas the third one shows a deeply damaged and function. If i is the generic row coordinate and j the generic
thinned sample. The data processing and analysis tests that column coordinate of the 2D image, for each row we find
we carry out are described in the following sections. the set
n    2  o
P c = pi,j s.t  dI
d I 
dj  > tI and  dj 2  ≤ δ (15)
 

where pi,j is the generic pixel, I is the color intensity,

tI is a predefined threshold value and δ an arbitrary small
value.

Individuation of Crackpoints by Differentiation

150
Image row intensity
dI/dj

100
I, dI/dj

Fig. 11. Example images of carbon strips. Top image: Image of a new
strip. Middle image: Image of a slightly damaged, but thinned strip. Bottom 50
Crackpoint

image: image of a deeply worn and damaged strip.

Threshold

0
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

A. Image Histogram j

By comparing the histogram of the 2D gray-scale image

Fig. 13. Individuation of crack points through differentiation of the image
of each carbon strip with the one belonging to the reference rows. In blue: Image row intensity. In green: Intensity derivative absolute
new strip image (assuming that the light conditions of value. Dashed magenta line: threshold value.
every capture instant are highly controlled and thus always
identical), we have an idea of how similar or dissimilar An alternative efficient test to individuate edged regions
to the new, unworn carbon surface the material structure (where defects and cracks are present) consists in applying
of the strip under exam is (figure (12)). A different color an edge detector. In our analysis we chose to apply the Canny
histogram suggests the presence of different cromatic areas edge detector [15]. The resulting image highlights the areas
which can be a symptom of material loss and damaged occupied by strong edges and discontinuous parts (figure
surface. The comparison between the two histograms H1 (14)). We count the total number of edges N e individuated
and H2 is obtained in terms of the normalized correlation in the image.
distance Rd (H1 , H2 ) [14]. A low value of the parameter
indicates that the surface is dissimilar from the one of a C. Connected Components
new strip. On the contrary, a high value of the correlation In order to individuate more extended defects, such as
coefficient points out that the surface under exam has similar regions that have lost material, we apply the analysis de-
features to a new one. scribed in the following. Each image is at first pre-processed
182
 high wear. The different threshold values mentioned in the
previous sections were analogously established according to
the results obtained from a new sample. Tables (II) and (III)
show the different numeric values.
The result of each analysis was compared to the reference
values and the level of wear according to each result was
decided on the basis of the nearest value in norm. In table
Fig. 14. Individuation of edges through the Canny Edge Detector.
(I) we show the wear level decisions for 8 different samples.
The various automated analysis results are compared to each
other and to the judgment of three human operators. Each
through morphological operations [16]. We take the gray-
row represents a test sample, while each column represents
scale image obtained from the RGB data and apply mor-
the wear level decision according to the specific analysis: S
phological opening, in order to eliminate possible speckle
stands for sample, L stands for low wear, M = medium wear,
noise, hence even out the color, and isolate the connected
H = high wear, I1 , I2 and I3 are the three human individ-
components of the image [17]. Morphological opening is
uals, T = Thickness analysis, TD = Thickness Derivative,
followed by morphological closing in order to separate cells
F = Fourier analysis, A = Autocorrelation analysis, C =
near each other and distinguish nearby connected elements.
Crosscorrelation analysis, W = Wavelet Transform, CD =
The image of the strip is then converted into its binary
Cromatic derivative and edge detection, HG = Histogram,
version, following the segmentation process [18]. In this
CC = Connected Componenets analysis.
way we individuate the regions characterized by a different
chromatic value, which we assume to be material defects. TABLE I
We find the connected pixel components of the black and W EAR L EVEL D ECISION R ESULTS
white image (figure (15)) in order to isolate the spots and
then compute the total connected area, which is proportional Thickness Material Loss
S I1 I2 I3 T S I1 I2 I3 HG CC
to the total worn area Awtot of the strip and threshold it. 1 L L L L 1 L L L L L
2 H H H H 2 H H H H H
3 M M H M 3 M M M M M
4 H H H H 4 H H M H M
5 M M M M 5 L M L L L
6 M M H H 6 H H H H H
7 L L M L 7 L L M L L
8 L L L L 8 L L L L L
Presence of Crackpoints
Fig. 15. Individuation of material defects through binarization and S I1 I2 I3 TD F A C W CD
connected components computation. 1 L L L L L L L L L
2 H H H H H H H H H
3 H M H H M M M H H
4 M M H M M M M M M
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
5 M L L M L L L M M
In order to assess the system performance we carried out 6 M L M M M M L M M
preliminary experiments in laboratory. A pantograph bow 7 H H H H H M M H H
8 L L L L L L L L L
was mounted on an actuated slider that runs to emulate the
passage of the train. The laser scanner and high resolution TABLE I. Wear level decision for 8 samples and for the three main defects.
camera were placed over the slider, with the aim of capturing
the scene (figure (16)).
TABLE II
Some experimental tests were performed by mounting a set
T HRESHOLD VALUES
of different carbon strips on the pantograph bow: some of
them were characterized by different types of defects, i.e td tf ta tc tw tI
presence of cracks, chipped material, etc. Others were worn 0.8 × 10−3 18.5 m−1 0.85 0.85 2.8 × 10−4 23
in thickness and others were perfectly new samples. Once TABLE II. Threshold values for the different analysis.
we collected a series of scans and images of the different
strips, we asked three different human individuals to observe
each sample and judge the level of wear, choosing between TABLE III
low, medium and high wear, concerning the three main R EFERENCE VALUES
defects: thickness, presence of cracks and material loss. For
each of the automated analysis results we considered three Wear Lev. T avg N cd Af Na Nc N cw Rd Awtot
LOW 0.16 mm 2 0.005 0 0 2 0 0.01 cm2
different reference values that define the corresponding level MED 0.15 mm 40 0.15 100 100 40 0.35 4 cm2
of wear. The reference values were chosen on the basis of the HIGH 0.14 mm 80 0.2 300 300 80 0.85 10 cm2
results obtained on three groundtruth samples, respectively TABLE III. Reference values of the different analysis results for low,
characterized by low/absence of wear, medium wear and medium and high wear decision.

183
 As we can see from table (I), most of the analysis results
agree among them and with the human judgments. The wear
level decisions given by the correlation analysis seem to be
more conservative with respect to the depth profile derivative
or Wavelet analysis, as sometimes the first one decide for
medium wear, whereas the second ones decide for high
wear. In each case the results suggest that the automated
inspection is efficient and can serve as a good support in the
maintenance process.
Fig. 16. Experimental setup: a pantograph bow mounted on an actuated
slider and surmounted by the capturing system.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The paper presents an automatic visual inspection system
that is able to determine the state of health of railway contact
strips autonomously. The automated system is conceived to
support human operators in maintenance decisions and in the
monitoring of the strips wear conditions. Several assessments
are carried out both on 2D and 3D data, obtained respectively
from a 3D tringulation laser scanner and a 2D high resolution
camera. The system provides a wear level decision for each
applied analysis, choosing between low, medium and high
wear, on the basis of a comparison of the analysis result with
three different reference values. Tests were performed on a
set of samples characterized by different types of defects and
the wear level decisions produced by the various analysis
were compared to each other and to the human judgment.
The results obtained show the effectiveness of the tool.
The module described in this paper will be integrated in a
more complex capturing system installed in a portal dedi-
cated to the visual inspection of trains and their condition-
based maintenance.
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