AIVR Ready
What is it
AIVR Ready is a compact, rail-approved backup power system developed by One Big Circle, installed on inspection vehicles to keep infrastructure monitoring devices connected after a train powers down. It provides 15 to 20 hours of continuous battery power, automatically switching between train power and battery supply to eliminate gaps in data transmission.
Where other hardware systems go offline when a vehicle is stabled or shut down, AIVR Ready ensures the upload process continues uninterrupted until every piece of captured data has reached the cloud.
Why it matters
A train run can generate enormous volumes of inspection data – linescan imagery, forward-facing video, thermal footage, track geometry outputs, and more. Without a persistent power source, that data sits onboard until the train is back in service and connected, creating backlogs and delaying the analysis that maintenance teams depend on. AIVR Ready eliminates that bottleneck, making data available to rail professionals faster and enabling quicker, more informed decisions. It also means there is no need to keep entire trains powered overnight simply to complete uploads – power is delivered precisely where it is needed.
The AIVR Ready unit, providing power supply and charge status monitoring for connected AIVR devices.
When: key dates
AIVR Ready was developed by One Big Circle at its Bristol headquarters. in February 2025 the first operational unit powered an AIVR Connect system (AIVR’s train-borne edge computing unit, which synchronises and organises transmission of data streams gathered on board). The system has since been prepared for deployment across the UK inspection vehicle fleet.
How it works
AIVR Ready monitors the power state of the host vehicle in real time. When train power is active, AIVR Connect draws from the vehicle’s supply as normal, while AIVR Ready’s battery charges in the background. The moment train power drops, whether planned or unexpected, the system switches automatically to battery, maintaining a stable, continuous supply to AIVR Connect without interruption. During that window, AIVR Connect continues transmitting all queued data streams via AIVR Swarm across available cellular networks, uploading until the backlog is cleared.
Powering only AIVR Connect, AIVR Ready is highly energy-efficient, its 15 to 20 hour capacity more than sufficient to clear a full day’s captured data in typical operating conditions.
AIVR Ready required rigorous testing in accordance with Railway standards, to ensure that the battery monitoring was adequate. This also required the design of an enclosure that could be safely handled even in the unlikely event of any issue with the battery.