A system and method for minimizing safety hazards along a railroad track by optimizing visual railroad inspection frequency based on acquired data relating to railroad safety maintenance. The system and method can provide various rating systems for the railroad assets to optimize railroad inspections by focusing the inspections to railroad assets experiencing suboptimal conditions. The ratings of the railroad assets are based on various data collected from physical factors impacting the life of the railroad assets, such as an amount of rainfall, locomotive weight and frequency of passing, and manually detected defects. The system and method can focus the railroad inspection efforts to the railroad assets requiring increased attention in response to the suboptimal conditions. The focused inspections can result in longer lifespan of the railroad assets, efficient inspections, and safer railroads.

A system for analyzing a railroad track comprises a transport device, a camera coupled to the transport device, an electronic display device, a memory device, and one or more processors. The camera is disposed adjacent to a rail of the railroad track and generates image data reproducible as one or more images of at least a portion of a surface of the rail. The processors can produce an image of the rail surface, which includes a plurality of elongated portions. The image is analyzed to identify any defects that exist within each elongated portion of the rail surface. The processors determine a value of a metric for each elongated portion of the rail surface. The metric is associated with the identified defects. The electronic display device displays a graph indicative of the metric for each elongated portion, the image of the rail surface, or both.

A system for detection and identification of objects and obstacles near, between or on railway comprise several forward-looking imagers adapted to cover each different range forward and preferably to be sensitive each to different wavelength of radiation, including visible light, LWIR, and SWIR. The substantially homogeneous temperature along the rail the image of which is included in an imager frame assists in identifying and distinguishing the rail from the background Image processing is applied to define living creature in the image frame and to distinguish from a man-made object based on temperature of the body. Electro optic sensors (e.g. thermal infrared imaging sensor and visible band imaging sensor) are used to survey and monitor railway scenes in real time.

A diagnostic inspection system for inspecting railway components which can be mounted on a railway vehicle designed to travel on a railway track, said diagnostic inspection system being designed to perform a diagnostic inspection of a railway component during movement on the railway track, said diagnostic inspection system comprising: one single mechanical structure (10) which can be fixed below the body of a railway vehicle; first optical units (13) positioned on said mechanical structure (10) for a first rail (11); second optical units (14) positioned on said mechanical structure (10) for a second rail (12); each of said optical units (13, 14) comprises: a matrix camera (20) associated with an infrared laser (21), and a linear camera (22) associated with a white laser (RGB) (23); said white laser (RGB) (23) comprises: three laser sources capable of emitting the three primary colours; three dichroic mirrors able to sum the components of said three laser sources in one single point; a Powell lens to generate a white light line; said first optical units (13) comprise a first left-hand optical unit positioned externally to said first rail (11) and inclined to frame the outer side of said first rail (11), a first central optical unit positioned perpendicular above said first rail (11) and a first right-hand optical unit positioned externally to said first rail (11) and inclined to frame the inner side of said first rail (11); said second optical units (14) comprise a second left-hand optical unit positioned internally to said second rail (12) and inclined to frame the inner side of said second rail (12), a second central optical unit positioned perpendicular above said second rail (12) and a second right-hand optical unit positioned externally to said second rail (12) and inclined to frame the outer side of said second rail (12); said mechanical structure (10) is a bar having a length greater than the distance between said first rail (11) and said second rail (12).

Described herein is a fully autonomous drone-based track inspection system that does not rely on GPS but instead uses optical images taken from the drone to identify the railroad track and navigate the drone to cruise along the track to perform track inspection tasks; track images are taken by the onboard drone camera and processed to provide both navigation information for autonomous drone flight control and track component health evaluation.

The present disclosure generally relates to automated detection of railroad track features. Images of a railroad track are captured and analyzed to identify track features such as anchors, spikes, rail ties, tie plates, and joints. Various image processing techniques are utilized to accurately distinguish between track features and other objects in the captured images. Track features identified in the images are assigned identifiers and locations and stored in a database so that a status and/or condition of the track features may be monitored for maintenance purposes.

A method of re-routing an autonomous vehicle operating on an initial pre-calculated route in an autonomous transportation network. The method comprises the detection of a perturbation regarding vehicle flow within a part of the autonomous transportation network by a first infrastructure element, the retrieval of at least one of a plurality of perturbation minimization strategies from a perturbation strategy memory based on the detected perturbation and the generation of perturbation information relating to the detected perturbation. The perturbation information or the perturbation minimization strategies are transmitted to at least one other infrastructure element in the autonomous transportation network and the perturbation information is transmitted from the one other infrastructure element to the autonomous vehicle. The autonomous vehicle follows an alternate pre-calculated route, wherein the alternate pre-calculated route is based on the received perturbation information.

A method for monitoring a danger area of a railway installation. At least one radio module is arranged in, or in the vicinity of, the danger area. Radio signals are transmitted by the radio module and the radio signals are received and evaluated. A pattern of the received radio signals in a basic state of the danger area is determined and when the radio signals are evaluated, differences from the pattern in the basic state are determined and a response is triggered when the differences exceed a predefined limit value. There is also described a monitoring device. The radio modules are preferably WLAN modules and the danger area is a tunnel. Timetabled breaches of the danger area by trains do not lead to an alarm and the radio modules are functionally tested by determining whether the predefined limit value is exceeded when a train travels through.

The invention relates to a method for monitoring the physical state of a longitudinal element (IO) of a railway-type rail, the method having a step of detecting mechanical waves moving along the longitudinal element (IO), in particular due to the passing of a train, by means of an array of mechanical wave sensors placed along and in contact with the longitudinal element, the array having at least one first pair (A) of sensors each positioned at one end of a first portion (IOa) of the longitudinal element (IO), and a step of processing the signals emitted by the sensors in the array of sensors, the processing step having the determination of at least one first interfered signal determined from signals provided by the sensors in the first pair (A) of sensors over a first predetermined period of time.

The present application provides a simulation method for equivalent fatigue damage of wheel-rail steel, and relates to the study of wheel-rail relationship of rail transportation. After obtaining the train load spectrum when the target train serves for the preset mileage, the wheel-rail systematic 3D model corresponding to the target train is assigned to simulate the load according to the train load spectrum to obtain the stress spectrum of the dangerous part of the rim, and determine the target stress and stress application frequency corresponding to the expected simulated mileage according to the stress spectrum of the dangerous part of the rim. Then, the driving fatigue test machine carries out fatigue tests on the wheel-rail steel fatigue sample of the target train according to the target stress and stress application frequency, and obtains the equivalent fatigue damage data of the wheel-rail steel at the expected simulated mileage of the target train.