B61L2205/04

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RAILROAD PERSONNEL SAFETY ASSURANCE

A system for enhancing personnel safety on a railroad track is presented. The system can receive data from sensors and/or a PTC system to determine positions of clients/worker and/or vehicles, and further utilize such data to determine if a vehicle is within a certain proximity of the client/worker location. The system can further generate geofences around clients/vehicles to and determine when such geofences intersect one another. Additionally, the present disclosure can assign severity levels and generate alerts with the assigned severity levels, and such severity levels can indicate how close a vehicle is to a particular location. It is an object of the invention to provide a system for generating alerts to notify personnel when they much retreat to a place of safety.

TRAIN POSITION DETECTING DEVICE

A train position detecting device includes: a GPS position guarantee range calculation part for calculating, based on a result of measurement of a position of a train by GPS signals; a tachogenerator-position guarantee range calculation part for calculating, based on a result of measurement of a position of the train by a tachometer generator that measures a relative distance from a measurement carried out previously; and a position determination part that determines, between an end part of the GPS position guarantee range in the first-direction and an end part of the tachogenerator-position guarantee range in the first-direction, a position of an end part on the positive side of the second direction to be a position of the end part of the train in the first-direction.

Work block encroachment warning system

The present disclosure generally relates to work block encroachment warning systems for providing protection for rail workers working in a mobile or fixed work block. For example, a vehicle (V)-aware unit installed on a moving rail vehicle and a work block limit encroachment unit mounted on a railroad may wirelessly communicate with each other to determine a distance between them. When a vehicle is moving toward an occupied work block, the distance may be used to identify potential hazards.

Vehicle orientation determination system

A vehicle orientation determination system includes one or more processors configured to determine a first distance between a reference device disposed on a first vehicle and a front device disposed on a second vehicle. The first and second vehicles are both disposed on a route. The one or more processors are further configured to determine a second distance between the reference device disposed on the first vehicle and a rear device disposed on the second vehicle. The front device is located more proximate to a front end of the second vehicle than a proximity of the rear device to the front end. The one or more processors are configured to determine that the second vehicle has a common orientation as the first vehicle relative to the route based on the first distance being less than the second distance.

Methods for forming 3D image data and associated apparatuses
11567188 · 2023-01-31 · ·

A method for forming 3D image data representative of the subsurface of infrastructure located in the vicinity of a moving vehicle. The method includes: rotating a directional antenna, mounted to the moving vehicle, about an antenna rotation axis; performing, using the directional antenna whilst it is rotated about the antenna rotation axis, a plurality of collection cycles in which the directional antenna emits RF energy and receives reflected RF energy; collecting, during each of the plurality of collection cycles performed by the directional antenna.

Speed control and track change detection device suitable for railways

A speed control and track change detection device for railways is characterised in that it comprises three high-frequency radar sensors located at the vertices of an imaginary triangle and a digital processing device for processing the signals detected by the radars, wherein in the case of the speed control system, both sensors are located at 1 m distance from each other along the axis of the path of the railway and inspect the ground of the infrastructure 2 cm away from the outside of each rail, and according to the temporal offset of the signals obtained the digital processing device estimates the exact speed of the train.

Automated tie marking

A system and method for automating railroad maintenance for a tie gang using electronic tie marking (ETM) configured to optimize railroad asset maintenance. The system enables the automating of an adaptive maintenance process for the asset that is being maintainanced. The system can identify a railroad asset scheduled for maintenance using various forms of inspection including real-time kinematic (RTK)-corrected GPS data, radar signal processing data, and real-time imaging. The system also provides for the acquisition and upload of asset pictures for verification and analysis of a railroad asset. The system can identify a next location to perform maintenance and can calculate an optimum path based on sensor input incorporating machine-specific and environmental characteristics. The system further can provide a customizable user interface to identify, track, and process information related to maintenance of the railroad asset.

METHOD AND MONITORING SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING A POSITION OF A RAIL VEHICLE

The invention relates to a method for determining a position of a rail vehicle, moving on a track, by means of an optical measuring system comprising a stereo camera system and an evaluation device, wherein by means of the stereo camera system an image pair is recorded from a reference point in a lateral environment of the track and wherein by means of photogrammetry the position of the rail vehicle is determined in relation to the reference point. The position of the rail vehicle is additionally detected by means of a radio-based measuring system for real-time locating by means of anchor modules attached to the rail vehicle and by means of transponders attached to several reference points, wherein position data of the two measuring systems are compared by means of a central system unit. In this way, two independent measuring systems are used to generate position data.

METHOD FOR GAUGING A TRACK POSITION
20230221448 · 2023-07-13 ·

A method for gauging a track position uses a track gauging trolley (7) moved on the track. A gauging run is carried out with the track gauging trolley (7), a GPS antenna (8) and an RTK GPS receiver (11) that communicates with an RTK correction data service (RTK-KD), wherein at least one wheel (10) of the track gauging trolley (7) is pressed against a rail (4). Using boundary conditions such as constraint positions, constraint points and maximum permissible track position corrections, to avoid the disadvantages of the drifts of an inertial gauging system during long gauging runs and the only relative information on the track position, the position of the GPS antenna (8) with respect to a reference axis of the track (4, 10) is determined with the aid of a compensation scanner (6) and a computing unit (13), and the measured GPS coordinates are converted into Cartesian coordinates (Pi(xi, yi, zi)) recorded with the computing unit (13) as a spatial curve (3), from which the location image (1), from which a desired curvature image (ksoll) is calculated, and the longitudinal image (2), from which a desired longitudinal inclination image (Nsoll) is calculated, are formed. An inertial system (INS) is set up on the gauging trolley (7), with which inertial system a correction spatial curve of the same section is created, and recorded using the computing unit (13) and is used as a correction value for the GPS coordinates converted into Cartesian coordinates (Pi(xi, yi, zi)).

Apparatus for locating a mobile railway asset

In one aspect of the present disclosure, an apparatus for locating a mobile railway asset is provided that includes a power source, GNSS circuitry configured to utilize electrical power from the power source to receive GNSS data, and a controller operatively coupled to the power source and the GNSS circuitry. The controller has a power saving mode wherein the controller inhibits the GNSS circuitry from receiving GNSS data and a standard accuracy mode wherein the controller permits the GNSS circuitry to receive GNSS data for a first time period. The controller has a higher accuracy mode wherein the controller permits the GNSS circuitry to receive GNSS data for a second time period longer than the first time period, and subsequently across multiple instances, in order to collect more GNSS data that can be qualified, filtered, sorted, and averaged to produce a more accurate result.