Railroad Train Monitoring System

• US 20100174428A1
• Filed: 01/11/2010
• Published: 07/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amsted Rail Company Incorporated (Amsted Industries Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Amsted Rail Company Incorporated (Amsted Industries Incorporated)
• Inventors: McCann, Michael J., LeFebvre, William
• Granted Patent: US 8,212,685 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/19
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/26 Rail vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B61K 13/00 Other auxiliaries or accessories for railways safety belts or harnesses A62B35/00
• CPC Class Codes: B61K 9/00 Railway vehicle profile gauges; Detecting or indicating overheating of components; Apparatus on locomotives or cars to indicate bad track sections; General design of track recording vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 15/0072 On-board train data handling
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 15/0081 On-board diagnosis or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 2205/04 Satellite based navigation systems, e.g. global positioning system [GPS]
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 25/021 Measuring and recording of train speed
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 25/025 Absolute localisation, e.g. providing geodetic coordinates
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 27/40 Handling position reports or trackside vehicle data
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/16 Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles

Abstract

Railcar monitoring utilizes instrumented, flexible pads supported within the truck pedestal jaws on the bearing adapters. The pads contain sensors for monitoring temperature pressure, shifting loads, truck hunting and the like and have circuitry for processing information received from the sensors and for processing and reporting departures of performance variables to a remote source. The system cyclically activates polling each pad on a car and communicates signals of critical departures and car identity to a remote source.

Claims

1-30. -30. (canceled)

31. A monitoring system for monitoring performance criteria of a railcar, said railcar including a car body and a plurality of trucks each carrying one or more wheel sets mounted on said railcar, comprising:

one or more sensing units disposed on a railcar;

one or more sensors disposed on said sensing unit, said sensors measuring parameters relevant to the operating performance of said railcar;

a computational element disposed on said sensing unit programmed to control the periodicity and sampling frequency of readings from said one or more sensors and for performing an analysis of data gathered via said readings; and

a communication element disposed on said sensing unit for transmitting data selected as a result of said analysis.

32. The monitoring system of claim 31 wherein said one or more sensing units are in communication with one or more other of said sensing units and further wherein data transmitted by any one of said sensing units may be relayed by another of said sensing units to a specific location.

33. The monitoring system of claim 32 further comprising:

a data control unit, mounted on said railcar, for receiving data transmitted from one or more of said sensing units, for analyzing said data, and for selectively communicating said data to a receiver located at a location remote from said railcar.

34. The monitoring system of claim 33 wherein said one or more sensing units are all located on the same railcar and further wherein data transmitted by any of said sensing units may be relayed to another of said sensing units before reaching said data control unit.

35. The monitoring system of claim 34 wherein one or more of said sensing units comprises a pad disposed between a wheel set and its corresponding truck.

36. The monitoring system of claim 32 further comprising:

a data control unit, mounted on a train of which said railcar is a part, for receiving data transmitted from one or more of said sensing units, for analyzing said data, and for selectively communicating said data to a receiver located at a location remote from said train;

wherein said one or more sensing units may be located on multiple railcars and further wherein said specific location to which said data is transmitted is said data control unit.

37. The monitoring system of claim 36 wherein one or more of said sensing units comprises a pad disposed between a wheel set and its corresponding truck.

38. The monitoring system of claim 31, further comprising:

a data control unit, mounted on said railcar, for receiving data transmitted from one or more of said sensing units, for analyzing said data, and for selectively communicating said data to a remote receiver;

wherein said data control unit programs said computational element on each of said sensing units to control (i) the sampling frequency for each sensor associated with said sensing units;

(ii) the periodicity of sampling for each sensor associated with said sensing units; and

(iii) how often collected data should be transmitted via said communications element to said data control unit.

39. The monitoring system of claim 38 wherein one or more of said sensing units comprises a pad disposed between a wheel set and its corresponding truck.

40. The monitoring system of claim 38, wherein said data control unit communicates said data to said remote receiver wirelessly.

41. The monitoring system of claim 38, wherein said communication element transmits said gathered data wirelessly to said data control unit.

42. The monitoring system of claim 39, wherein each of said sensors is responsive to one or more of a plurality of variables, including changes in compressive stress, shear stress and temperature within said pad.

43. The monitoring system of claim 38, wherein said sensing unit may transmit an unsolicited or unscheduled message if said computational element determines that said gathered data is outside an acceptable range for a particular sensed parameter.

44. The monitoring system of claim 38, wherein said data control unit also contains a computational element, further comprising:

a logical inference engine, said logical inference engine deriving inferences regarding the status of said railcar based on data collected by a plurality of sensors located on a plurality of sensing units.

45. The monitoring system of claim 43 wherein said logical inference engine resides in said computational element of said data control unit.

46. The monitoring system of claim 43 wherein said logical inference engine is distributed over said one or more computational elements of said sensing units and said computational element of said data control unit.

47. The monitoring system of claim 38, wherein said data control unit transmits a message to said remote receiver when it determines that said inferred status indicates a problem in the operation or performance of said railcar.

48. The monitoring system of claim 43, wherein said data control unit periodically transmits a status message to said remote receiver when said inferred status indicates that said railcar is operating with acceptable boundaries.

49. The monitoring system of claim 43 wherein said logical inference engine uses information available from outside sources in addition to all data collected regarding said railcar in deriving said inferences regarding the behavior of said railcar.

50. The monitoring system of claim 49 wherein said outside sources are selected from a group consisting of a GPS device, an ambient temperature sensor, a speed sensor, an ambient humidity sensor, an accelerometer and a gyroscope.

51. The monitoring system of claim 38 wherein said sensing units are powered by power elements which generate energy from the motion of said railcars.

52. A method of monitoring performance of interconnected mobile units having bodies supported by wheels, wherein one of said mobile units is a controllable prime mover and the remainder of said units are interconnected to said prime mover, said method comprising:

providing interfacing pads between the wheels and the bodies of the mobile units, said pads having embedded sensors for measuring operational parameters of said mobile units, said pads being programmable to control the sampling frequency for each sensor and the periodicity of sampling for each of said sensors; and

providing, on said pads, a computational capability for evaluating said measured operational parameters, and for identifying performance behavior derived from said measured operational parameters considered to be outside of a normal operating range; and

communicating to a single location messages identifying the performance behavior to be outside of a normal operating range.

53. A method of monitoring according to claim 52, further including the step of including in the messages communicated to said single location an identification code unique to the mobile unit from which the signals identifying behavior considered to be outside of a normal operating range originate.

54. The method of claim 52 wherein said single location is located on said prime mover.