ABQ Times

Researchers at The University of New Mexico School of Engineering are contributing to a national effort to enhance railroad safety using advanced technologies. This initiative is part of the Rail Center for Research Enhancing Short Line Transportation (CREST), led by Penn State University and funded by the Federal Railroad Administration. CREST, supported by a $6.8 million grant from the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Program, will launch in the fall with 10 research projects involving several universities.

The project aims to assist short line railroads—small business-operated lines—in improving safety and profitability through low-cost sensors, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence. These technologies will help identify track areas needing maintenance, allowing better prioritization of repairs.

Fernando Moreu, an associate professor at UNM's Gerald May Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, leads UNM’s involvement through his Smart Management of Infrastructure Lab (SMILab). "The Class One railroads are already using AI," Moreu said. "We’re trying to make accessible for the short lines the same technical benefits that exist for larger railroads."

Lisa Losada Rojas, assistant professor in the same department and co-principal investigator on the project, emphasized its interdisciplinary nature. "Our main focus is that our work is very interdisciplinary," she said. "The goal is to make people healthier, society healthier, and our infrastructure healthier and more resilient for the future."

UNM’s project will explore how low-cost sensors like LEWIS can improve maintenance efficiency for small railroad companies. Neuromorphic cameras offer a more advanced option despite their higher cost. Wyatt Saeger, a Civil Engineering master’s student working on neuromorphic cameras in SMILab, expressed enthusiasm about their potential impact on railroad systems.

"There is so much more we can work on and develop that hasn’t been done before," Saeger said.

Ali Mohammadkhorasani, a Ph.D. candidate in Moreu’s lab, studies how AI and augmented reality can aid railroad inspectors in decision-making processes. He highlighted the importance of identifying unseen cracks over measuring existing ones.

"Using these systems to record the width of a crack is not that important," he noted.

Augmented reality could eventually help inspectors visualize structural issues invisible to the naked eye.

Learn more about other research projects happening in SMILab online.