An autonomous system for generating and interpreting point clouds of a rail corridor along a survey path while moving on a railroad corridor assessment platform. The system includes two rear-facing LiDAR sensors configured to scan along scan planes that intersect but not at all points and wherein neither scan plane intersects a main body of any rail car adjoined to a rear end of the railroad corridor assessment platform. The system also includes a plurality of high-resolution cameras for gathering image data from a rail corridor. The LiDAR sensors and the high-resolution cameras are housed in autonomously controlled and temperature controlled protective enclosures.

An end-of-train (EOT) unit that comprises an enclosure housing its monitoring, control, and communication equipment and systems, an arm that positions and supports at least one auxiliary wheel on a rail of a track to rotate electrical generator coupled to the auxiliary wheel while the train is moving.

A system includes one or more processors configured to identify first location data corresponding to a first location of a first vehicle of a vehicle system when the first vehicle passes a reference object and identify second location data corresponding to a second location of a second vehicle of the vehicle system. The one or more processors are further configured to determine whether the first location and the second location are within a predetermined distance of each other and in response to determining that the first and second locations are within the predetermined distance of each other, and generate a signal related to a condition that the first location and the second location are within the predetermined distance.

This system includes a ground ATC and an on board ATC, which is switched from an active mode toward a standby mode and vice versa by a wake-up unit. In the standby mode, only the following components remain powered: odometry device; a main computer; a radio communication device between the on board ATC and the ground ATC; the wake-up unit. The main computer is programmed so as, in the standby mode, to verify that the movement of the train measured by the odometry device from the switching from the active mode to the standby mode is zero and, in the affirmative, to send the ground ATC an instantaneous position of the train using the radio communication device.

A device attached to a railcar of a train is provided. The device comprises a radio frequency (RF) transceiver to transmit and receive a RF signal. The device includes a RF modem configured to convert the received RF signal into a low frequency (LF) analog signal. The device includes a digital signal processor to process the LF signal. The digital signal processor includes a phase detector, a loop filter, and a digitally controlled oscillator. The phase detector compares the LF signal and a reference signal to generate an error signal. The phase detector also determines a state of the digital signal processor, the state being one of a lock state or an out of lock state. Further, the phase detector detects an event that the RF signal is lost and generate a loss signal. The loop filter filters the error signal and generates an error control signal. The digitally controlled oscillator generates the reference signal based on the error control signal, the state, and the loss signal.

Railyard management system for managing, assembling, disassembling and validating train consists and monitoring railcars in the railyard. The system provides for the collection of data and the movement of data from lower processing levels to higher processing levels, where an inference engine draws inferences regarding the current state of railcars and train consists within the railyard. The inferences are assigned confidence levels based on the methods and available data used to draw the inferences. The system can be used to track the location and orientation of railcars in the railyard and to validate order and orientation of assets in a train consist.

The disclosure relates to a control method for supporting dynamic coupling and uncoupling of a train, including steps of: step A, acquiring stored coupling status information during an initialization phase; step B, loading an off-line configuration of a corresponding composition according to the stored coupling status; step C, collecting three sets of input signals related to the coupling; step D, determining whether a train coupling status is proper according to the collected signals, then turning to step E if yes and turning to step F if no; step E, determining whether a current coupling status is consistent with the off-line configuration used in the step B, then performing step H if yes and performing step G if no; step F, requesting emergency braking, and reporting an alarming error; step G, requesting emergency braking, re-writing coupling status information with codes after determining that the train is stationary, and then turning to the step A for re-initialization. Compared with the prior art, the disclosure has advantages of high security, high reliability, and high degree of automation etc.

An autonomous system for generating and interpreting point clouds of a rail corridor along a survey path while moving on a railroad corridor assessment platform. The system includes two rear-facing LiDAR sensors configured to scan along scan planes that intersect but not at all points and wherein neither scan plane intersects a main body of any rail car adjoined to a rear end of the railroad corridor assessment platform. The system also includes a plurality of high-resolution cameras for gathering image data from a rail corridor. The LiDAR sensors and the high-resolution cameras are housed in autonomously controlled and temperature controlled protective enclosures.

Systems and methods of verifying train integrity may include generating EOT operation information based on sensor data from one or more sensors located at the end of a train, monitoring train integrity by periodically determining if the EOT operation information correlates to HOT operation information in a head of the train associated with a status of one or more sensors in the head of the train within a predetermined range, generating an integrity notification based at least partially on monitoring the predetermined range between EOT operation information and HOT operation information, and communicating a notification of an integrity event to at least one of the following: an on-board computer, an EOT device, a remote server associated with a specified entity, or any combination thereof.

Inter-vehicle communications for avoiding rear collision of rail vehicles on a railroad that includes, for example, a collision avoidance system. The collision avoidance system may comprise an end-of-train device and a V-aware unit located on different vehicles. The two devices may be configured to wirelessly communicate with each other, and then detect each other's presence by estimating a distance between them. Warnings may be issued to respective operators against a collision hazard when the distance drops to or below a pre-determined threshold.