Intelligent robots debut in spotting malfunctions in China's cargo railway

China's first set of intelligent inspection robots for freight railways has entered operation in Cangzhou, North China's Hebei Province, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday, citing state-owned energy major CHN Energy.

The deployment of intelligent robots for freight railway inspection holds demonstrative significance in promoting the intelligentization of railway freight cars in the country, according to the report. 

The system has achieved a multi-layered operation and maintenance model combining robot inspection, manual verification and cloud-based diagnoses for the first time in railway freight car maintenance.

Xue Zhanyuan, an operator with Huanghua Port in charge of railway equipment under CHN Energy, said that with the introduction of intelligent inspection robots, artificial intelligence-based recognition technology is being used to identify potential hazards from tens of thousands of images. 

During 24-hour autonomous inspection tasks, the combined operation of humans and machines can reduce the total inspection time for 108 cars by 30 minutes, according to Xue. 

The intelligent inspection system significantly reduces labor intensity and human errors in manual inspections, with an accuracy rate of more than 98 percent for fault identification. For common faults, the identification rate is 100 percent.

"These efforts, which help improve the level of intelligentization in freight car inspection, are happening amid a nationwide 'AI Plus' initiative and reflect innovation in the sector," Sun Zhang, a railway expert at Shanghai Tongji University, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

In addition to inspections for freight railways, China has already adopted intelligent robots to perform inspection tasks to safeguard high-speed rail safety with vastly improved efficiency, according to a separate Xinhua report.

Freight transport volume in 2024 totaled 5.18 billion tons, up 2.8 percent year-on-year, data released by the National Railway Administration in January showed.

In the first four months of this year, China's fixed-asset investment in railways reached 194.7 billion yuan ($26.9 billion), up 5.3 percent year-on-year, data from the China State Railway Group Co showed on Sunday.