UK: Funding to test rail infrastructure technology has been awarded in the second round of the Innovation in Railway Construction competition.
The first round covered feasibility studies, and the second round provides funding to take the ideas to concept stage at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence site in South Wales.
The competition is backed with £7·4m provided by the Department for Business & Trade through Innovate UK.
‘We are helping to accelerate the development of the best ideas to see if we can, ultimately, bring them into operation more quickly on the UK rail network’ said GCRE Ltd Chief Executive Simon Jones.
Mike Noakes, Head of Rail at the Department for Business & Trade, said ‘the innovations and new technologies developed on the GCRE site will also offer new export growth potential as companies and start-ups look to commercialise the new ideas they are developing’.
| Team | Project | Award |
|---|---|---|
| Nationwide Engineering Research & Development | Graphene enhanced concrete sleeper for lower embodied carbon | £340 436 |
| Mimicrete | Mimicrete Vascular Self-healing Solution in Railway Practice — Phase 2 Demonstration | £568 102 |
| Silicon Microgravity | Gravity sensing for rail construction demonstration | £156 111 |
| Ingram Networks | Delivering telecommunications innovations in Railway construction at GCRE | £566 600 |
| Hypertunnel | GCRE: Railway Construction Innovation Phase 2 | £557 406 |
| Focus Sensors | AURA 2 — Attaining Ubiquitous Railway Analysis Phase 2 | £163 026 |
| Furrer + Frey GB | ICAGE (Innovative CAntilever for Greener Electrification at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence) | £415 178 |
| Universal Signalling | Universal Interlocking: Next generation digital signalling as overlay on GCRE | £559 070 |
| Associated Utility Supplies | A Composite Twin Track Cantilever for Smarter Rail Electrification | £533 189 |
| Furrer + Frey GB | CODES (COst-Reducing Dynamic Electrification gradient System) | £450 347 |
| Robok | INTERMODAL - INTElligent Real-time, MOnitoring & Detection video AnaLytics for rail construction | £411 000 |
| Enerail | Energy Control System for Energy Storage and Renewables | £505 669 |
| Pauley Group | Delivering and demonstrating a human-in-the-loop digital twin for the construction and maintenance of GCRE (Athena) | £446 663 |
| Thomson Engineering Design | Mobile Rail Panel Handler (MoRPH) | £305 530 |
| Drone Evolution | Phase 2 — Use of tethered drones in rail | £320 433 |
