This challenge is now closed 

What’s the open innovation challenge?

This is phase 1 of a 2-stage Small Business Research initiative (SBRI) competition. The challenge is open to organisations based in the UK, EU or EEA. The aim is to develop a solution for automating railway structure gauging processing and to demonstrate this using data recorded from a live railway.

In phase 1 you must train the application to identify and categorise 10 types of structure and vegetation with accuracy equivalent to a human and record accurately with cant, curvature and clearance. In phase 2, you must analyse successive runs and demonstrate the performance of the system compared to conventional manual inspections.

The deadline for applications is 29 January 2020 at 12pm.

Project date milestones

2 December 2019 - Competition opens
5 December 2019 - London briefing event
22 January 2020, 12pm - Registration closes
29 January 2020, 12pm - Competition closes
9 March 2020 - Interviews week commencing
20 March 2020 - Applicants notified
17 April 2020 - Contracts awarded

Funding support

Your project’s total eligible project costs for phase 1 must be up to £90k plus VAT. For phase 2, the total eligible costs will be up to £360k plus VAT.

Please note: only successful applicants from phase 1 will be able to take part in phase 2.