Before converting a five-year-old exploratory tunnel on the new Turin-Lyons rail link into part of the main Alpine drive, Italian engineers had to assess its condition after lying idle for five years in a potentially hazardous environment.
Working with contractor Webuild Group, CIM4.0, a public-private partnership competence center, developed a wheeled, battery-powered robotic rover that can sample ambient gases and probe conditions in the last 3 km of the 7.6 km Maddalena pilot at Chiomonte, some 60 km west of Turin, Italy.