How does DPA complete the workshop automation measurement of railway bogie

Bogie is one of the most important components in the structure of railway vehicle, and its parameters directly determine the stability and ride comfort of the vehicle.For Deutsche Bahn, a German railway company, bogie repairs and measurements are the norm.

Challenges and needs

In the past, Deutsche Bahn workers have used standard gauges and graduated panels to detect points and geometric features on bogies.The technology is not flexible, time consuming and can't be used in new products, so a new measurement solution is needed.The new scheme must meet four requirements, notably shorten the measuring time, automate the measuring process, be able to measure the new bogie, and ensure high accuracy and reporting requirements.

After a lot of testing, only one measurement system met all the requirements: hexagon's DPA photogrammetry system.DPA is a portable 3D measurement system that USES a digital camera to collect data. Each bogie needs only 20-50 points to analyze the measurement results and generate standardized reports.

01. high efficiency: automatic measurement

The engineers at hexagon specifically developed macros to automate the measurement, which greatly simplified the operation difficulty. The complete measurement process including bogies installation and removal, adapter calibration, image acquisition, analysis and report generation can be completed in 90 minutes without long training.

02.Accuracy: repeatability guaranteed

Prior to the use of DPA, Deutsche Bahn underwent extensive testing, including 25 consecutive repeated measurements of the bogie, testing for different measurement standards, and the final results demonstrated the absolute accuracy of DPA.At the same time, Deutsche Bahn used 10 repeated measurements per macro to measure the processing power of the device, all of which passed easily.

03. flexibility: substantial cost savings

The flexibility of DPA also saves the company a lot of costs. Previously, tablet devices and micrometers used for measurement required a lot of purchase, fixing and maintenance costs.In addition, bogie measurement has to be outsourced for these costs, which can now be done by the factory's own workers, and Deutsche Bahn has recouped its investment in just a few months."

DPA industrial photogrammetry system is favored by many industrial manufacturers with its flexible and automatic measurement performance, which can easily cope with complex workshop environment and bring greater stability and production benefits to customers.