Moscow-based vehicle automation specialist Cognitive Pilot intends to manufacture more than 2 000 of its Cognitive Rail Pilot driver assistance units next year as it looks to expand into western Europe.

The joint venture of Sberbank and Cognitive Technologies Group has identified potential customers in France, Denmark and Germany, as well as Russian Railways.

The expansion comes on the back of a series of trials of Cognitive Rail Pilot on shunting locomotives in Russia.

The AI-based autonomous driving tool is designed to help drivers avoid errors that may lead to accidents. Its principal components are a video camera unit featuring electronic climate control and a three-axis vibration dampener, specialist high-resolution millimetre-wave radar, and an industrial-grade processor. These are integrated with the vehicle’s traction and braking systems, and combined with a high-precision GNSS sensor and AI algorithms for data processing.

Cognitive Pilot has been undertaking trials with Russian Railways since 2019, and attended ATO with ChME3 shunting locomotives is being undertaken at various locations including Vologda and Ufa.

RZD has tested Cognitive Rail Pilot on a shunting locomotive, where it is used to start and brake trains and to detect hazards in marshalling yards.

On the back of these trials, which were focused largely on shunting applications where the AI tools could detect possible risks such as human or animal incursion onto the tracks, Cognitive Pilot is launching series production of the equipment at a factory in Tomsk which opened in early September to assemble intelligent tools for trains and agricultural equipment.

‘We have already received a Certificate of Conformity on trial operation, which means that we have driven with our system the required number of hours on real railways’, says CEO Olga Uskova. ‘Cognitive Rail Pilot has confirmed its efficiency and has even allowed us to save a human life already. During one of the trials, an intoxicated man jumped out under the wheels of a train and our system braked the train.’