Automated rail depot inspection at scale is no longer theoretical. At the 118-hectare Pakenham Rail Depot in Victoria, FMT's Rail Facility Drones (RFD) inspect more than 19,000 components monthly, across 20 km of live overhead high-voltage infrastructure - without a single power isolation event. Average inspection cycle: 25 minutes. Accuracy: up to 98%.
Downer RTS manages the 118-hectare Pakenham Rail Depot -- one of Victoria's largest rail facilities and home to the High Capacity Metro Trains (HCMT) fleet. Routine inspection of 20 kilometres of overhead high-voltage assets had traditionally required full power isolation and manual crew setup, exposing maintenance teams to live-rail safety risks, prolonging operational downtime, and limiting the frequency at which inspections could be conducted. Accessing elevated and difficult-to-reach catenary infrastructure without de-energising assets remained a persistent challenge for the maintenance programme.
FMT deployed its Rail Facility Drones (RFD) system -- a fully autonomous UAV inspection platform purpose-built for large-scale rail depots. The drones execute pre-programmed mission profiles across the Pakenham depot, capturing high-resolution optical and infrared imagery of overhead catenary and facility assets without requiring power isolation or manual configuration. Raw imagery is processed through FMT's AI engine and delivered as actionable defect intelligence directly into the client's maintenance management system.
RFD inspects more than 19,000 components monthly across the 118-hectare Pakenham Rail Depot, monitoring 20 kilometres of overhead high-voltage assets with up to 98% accuracy. Operating across 22 autonomous mission profiles with an average flight time of 25 minutes, the system delivers comprehensive, repeatable coverage of the HCMT fleet's supporting infrastructure without any power isolation, manual setup, or disruption to depot operations.
Rail networks worldwide are under mounting pressure to maintain ageing infrastructure safely and cost-effectively amid a global shortage of skilled maintenance workers and ever-stricter safety regulations. According to the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), unplanned maintenance events account for up to 40% of total rail maintenance costs globally -- a burden that falls disproportionately on operators who rely on infrequent manual inspections rather than continuous asset monitoring.
Autonomous inspection platforms like RFD demonstrate how AI-powered drone technology can close this gap: delivering higher-frequency, higher-accuracy asset monitoring at a fraction of the cost and safety risk associated with traditional manual methods. The Pakenham deployment sets a new operational benchmark for modern rail facility management, showing that BVLOS drone inspection is ready for production deployment at scale.
Rail Facility Drones (RFD) is FMT's fully autonomous UAV inspection platform designed for large-scale rail depots. RFD drones are Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) approved, and work through pre-programmed missions to capture optical and infrared imagery of overhead catenary and facility assets -- without requiring power isolation or on-site staff.
FMT's drones autonomously take off from a docking station, fly one of up to 22 pre-defined mission profiles across the depot, and return to dock for automated data transfer. Each mission takes approximately 25 minutes. Imagery is processed by 35+ custom-trained AI models, and defect reports are delivered directly into the client's Maintenance Management System (MMS).
No. A key advantage of FMT's RFD system is that it operates without requiring power isolation of overhead high-voltage assets. This removes the primary safety exposure faced by manual inspection crews and eliminates the operational downtime previously required to isolate the catenary before inspection.
At the Pakenham Rail Depot, FMT's RFD system achieves up to 98% inspection accuracy across overhead high-voltage infrastructure. This compares favourably to manual inspection, where accuracy varies by operator experience and environmental conditions.
FMT holds commercial contracts with Melbourne Metro, Dubai Metro, Copenhagen Metro, Etihad Rail, among others. The Pakenham deployment with Downer RTS represents FMT's application of RFD technology to an Australian rail maintenance depot.
Future Maintenance Technologies (FMT) is an Australian AI robotics company founded in 2021, headquartered in Brisbane. FMT couples autonomous inspection robots with powerful AI software platforms for the global rail and aviation maintenance industry. The company's technology replaces manual inspection processes with autonomous robots, reducing costs, improving safety, and generating premium-quality data for predictive maintenance. FMT operates a robotics-as-a-service model and has worked with multiple Tier 1 organisations including Downer, Queensland Rail and Rio Tinto in Australia. Globally, FMT has worked with Keolis MHI (Dubai), Metro A/S (Copenhagen), Etihad Rail (Abu Dhabi), as well as Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa (Germany). FMT completed its Series A funding round led by Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) and Brighter Super.
