METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DATA PROCESSING

• US 20140222971A1
• Filed: 04/07/2014
• Published: 08/07/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Cooper, Jared Klineman, Brand, John, Goodermuth, Todd William, Nelson, Scott, Noffsinger, Joseph Forrest, Nagrodsky, Nick David, Mitti, Aaron Richard
• Granted Patent: US 10,469,579 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: B61C 17/12 Control gear; Arrangements for controlling locomotives from remote points in the train or when operating in multiple units control from points outside the train B61L3/00; fluid-actuated telemotors, servomotors F15B; control devices in general G05
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for processing data generated in a vehicle group. One example embodiment comprises selectively off-boarding a data set generated at a first vehicle in the vehicle group for storage purposes, the first data set off-boarded to one or more of a second vehicle in the vehicle group and a remote storage device.

Claims

1. A method of processing data in a vehicle group, comprising:

selectively off-boarding a data set generated at a first vehicle in the vehicle group for storage purposes, the first data set off-boarded to one or more of a second vehicle in the vehicle group and a remote storage device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the vehicle group includes a communication system configured to communicatively couple the first vehicle to other vehicles in the vehicle group, the communication system further configured to communicatively couple the vehicle group to the remote storage device, wherein off-boarding the data set for storage purposes includes,

during a first condition, off-boarding the data set from the first vehicle to the second vehicle in the vehicle group via the communication system;

and

during a second condition, off-boarding the data set from the first vehicle to the remote storage device via the communication system.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the communication system is linked to a network, and wherein the first condition includes a link quality of the communication system being lower than a threshold, and wherein the second condition includes the link quality of the communication system being higher than the threshold.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising evaluating a level of quality of the data set, and wherein the first condition includes the level of quality of the data set being above a threshold level, and wherein the second condition includes the level of quality of the data set being below the threshold level.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the level of quality of the data set comprises one or more of a bit rate, a signal to noise ratio, a resolution, and a packet loss rate of the data set.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the data set includes audio and video data generated by a data capture device of the first vehicle, the data capture device including at least an inward facing camera to capture data inside the first vehicle and an outward facing camera to capture data outside the first vehicle.

7. A method of processing data, comprising:

generating a data set on a first vehicle in a vehicle group;

evaluating a quality parameter of the data set;

if the quality parameter is below a quality threshold, storing the data set in a standard data storage device; and

if the quality parameter is above the quality threshold, storing the data set in a crash-hardened memory on the first vehicle.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising, if the quality parameter is above the threshold level, off-boarding the data set for storage purposes.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the quality parameter of the data set is evaluated at the first vehicle, and wherein off-boarding the data set includes transmitting the data set from the first vehicle to a second vehicle of the vehicle group over a communication system of the vehicle group, and storing the transmitted data set on the second vehicle.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the data set is a first data set, and further comprising, generating a second data set on the second vehicle, and if the quality parameter of the first data set is lower than the threshold, storing the second data set on the second vehicle.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein storing the data set in a standard data storage device comprises storing the data set in a standard data storage device located on the first vehicle.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein storing the data set in a standard data storage device comprises storing the data set in a standard data storage device located remotely from the first vehicle.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising, after generating the data set and before storing the data set, reducing a file size of the data set.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein reducing the file size of the data set comprises one or more of cropping one or more frames of the data set, reducing a resolution of one or more frames of the data set, and selectively lowering a level of detail of one or more frames of the data set.

15. A system, comprising:

a vehicle group including at least a first vehicle coupled to a second vehicle;

a data capture device associated with the first vehicle; and

a controller coupled to the data capture device and configured to;

evaluate a quality parameter of a data set generated by the data capture device; and

based on the evaluation, initiate recording of the data set on a data storage device located on the first vehicle and initiate transmission of the data set off-board the first vehicle to a the second vehicle.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the data storage device is one or more of a crash-hardened memory and a standard data storage device.

17. The system of claim 15, further comprising a communication system configured to communicatively couple the first vehicle to other vehicles in the vehicle group, the communication system further configured to communicatively couple the vehicle group to a remote storage device.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the data capture device comprises at least one of an inward-facing camera, an outward-facing camera, and a microphone.