RELIABILITY PAPER Design of a robot for inspection and diagnostic operations of rail track facilities Ilesanmi Daniyan and Khumbulani Mpofu Industrial Engineering, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa, and Samuel Nwankwo Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria Abstract Purpose – The need to examine the integrity of infrastructure in the rail industry in order to improve its reliability and reduce the chances of breakdown due to defects has brought about development of an inspection and diagnostic robot. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, an inspection robot was designed for detecting crack, corrosion, missing clips and wear on rail track facilities. The robot is designed to use infrared and ultrasonic sensors for obstacles avoidance and crack detection, two 3D-profilometer for wear detection as well as cameras with high resolution to capture real time images and colour sensors for corrosion detection. The robot is also designed with cameras placed in front of it with colour sensors at each side to assist in the detection of corrosion in the rail track. The image processing capability of the robot will permit the analysis of the type and depth of the crack and corrosion captured in the track. The computer aided design and modeling of the robot was carried out using the Solidworks software version 2018 while the simulation of the proposed system was carried out in the MATLAB 2020b environment. Findings – The results obtained present three frameworks for wear, corrosion and missing clips as well as crack detection. In addition, the design data for the development of the integrated robotic system is also presented in the work. The confusion matrix resulting from the simulation of the proposed system indicates significant sensitivity and accuracy of the system to the presence and detection of fault respectively. Hence, the work provides a design framework for detecting and analysing the presence of defects on the rail track. Practical implications – The development and the implementation of the designed robot will bring about a more proactive way to monitor rail track conditions and detect rail track defects so that effort can be geared towards its restoration before it becomes a major problem thus increasing the rail network capacity and availability. Originality/value – The novelty of this work is based on the fact that the system is designed to work autonomously to avoid obstacles and check for cracks, missing clips, wear and corrosion in the rail tracks with a system of integrated and coordinated components. Keywords Corrosion, Crack, Rail track, Robot, Wear Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction The rail transportation is rapidly emerging (Givoni, 2006) and it is poised to be the frontier of the world’s transportation system. Hence, many countries with fast-growing economies Robot for rail track inspection and diagnosis The authors thank the contributions of Engineer Ikenna Damian Uchegbu, in revision and validation of data towards the completion of this article. Funding: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research: Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) South Africa, Gibela Rail Transport Consortium (GRTC), National Research Foundation (NRF Grant 123575) and the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT).” The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0265-671X.htm Received 24 March 2020 Revised 22 December 2020 26 April 2021 16 August 2021 Accepted 27 September 2021 International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management © Emerald Publishing Limited 0265-671X DOI 10.1108/IJQRM-03-2020-0083