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Sensors and Security

Sensors and Drones: In A22, technology is at the service of safety

The bridges, viaducts and engineering works in general that make up infrastructure are complex, built over decades and subject to stresses of various kinds. These include the passage of millions of cars, heavy goods lorries, rain, snow and the scorching heat of summer. Autostrada del Brennero devotes great attention to ensuring their long-term safety and deciding the appropriate level of maintenance. To achieve these ends, it has deployed increasingly advanced technologies over the years.

One of the most important tools available today is, without doubt, sensor technology. Certain vital information can only be obtained by "going inside" the structures and Autostrada del Brennero is equipping all its engineering works, bridges and viaducts with sophisticated sensors that can detect a vast amount of crucial information that is collected and processed by a single software application. These devices range from topographic stations that measure displacement fields to temperature sensors, from dynamic and seismic accelerometers that measure the impact of traffic on the structure to hydrometers and sonar for hydraulic monitoring. Such a system will be installed on the Po bridge next spring and an equally sophisticated apparatus has been set up in Colle Isarco, where a ‘digital twin’ of the bridge was specially developed for the purpose. Monitoring of this kind will make possible the early identification of potential problems and the timely scheduling of maintenance works, thereby achieving two goals at the same time: increasing the safety of the infrastructure and carrying out any necessary work while minimizing its impact on traffic.

Autostrada del Brennero is backing up all this up with an initial fleet of six drones, which will be gradually expanded to include topographic surveys and inspections that can map the stability of slopes, as well as examining bridges, viaducts and tunnels, even in areas that are difficult for humans to access.

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