REAL TIME MACHINE VISION SYSTEM FOR TRAIN CONTROL AND PROTECTION

• US 20160121912A1
• Filed: 11/26/2014
• Published: 05/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Condor Acquisition SUB II Incorporated (Luminar Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Solfice Research Inc. (Luminar Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Puttagunta, Shanmukha Sravan, Chraim, Fabien
• Granted Patent: US 10,086,857 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 2205/04 Satellite based navigation systems, e.g. global positioning system [GPS]
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 23/041 Obstacle detection
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 23/34 for indicating the distance between vehicles or trains by the transmission of signals therebetween
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 25/025 Absolute localisation, e.g. providing geodetic coordinates
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 27/04 Automatic systems, e.g. controlled by train; Change-over to manual control

Abstract

A system, method, and apparatus are disclosed for a machine vision system that incorporates hardware and/or software, remote databases, and algorithms to map assets, evaluate railroad track conditions, and accurately determine the position of a moving vehicle on a railroad track. One benefit of the invention is the possibility of real-time processing of sensor data for guiding operation of the moving vehicle.

Claims

1. (canceled)

2. A vehicle localization apparatus comprising:

a GPS receiver mounted to a vehicle, the GPS receiver providing a first geographical position of the vehicle;

a local map cache residing within the vehicle, the local map cache storing a local map of assets comprising, for each asset, a location, properties associated with the asset, and one or more relationships relative to other assets;

one or more local environment sensors mounted on the vehicle to enable collection of data associated with a local environment in the vicinity of the vehicle;

one or more vehicle computers, the vehicle computers receiving the first geographical position from the GPS receiver to retrieve, from the local map cache, records associated with assets previously mapped in the vicinity of the first geographical position;

a feature extraction component implemented by the vehicle computers, the feature extraction component receiving the local environment sensor data to identify and locate observed assets presently within the vicinity of the vehicle; and

a position refinement component implemented by the vehicle computers, the position refinement component comparing the identity and location of observed assets from the feature extraction component with asset information retrieved from the local map cache to determine a present state of the vehicle.

3. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 2, in which the present state of the vehicle comprises a vehicle location.

4. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 3, in which the present state of the vehicle further comprises a vehicle velocity and direction of travel.

5. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 2, further comprising a wireless vehicular communication device via which the local map cache can download local map data from a remote database during vehicle operation.

6. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 2, in which the one or more local environment sensors comprise one or more of:

a LIDAR sensor, a digital camera and a radar sensor.

7. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 2, in which the local environment attributes comprise one or more of signs, roadside safety structures, and semaphores.

8. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 2, in which the local environment sensor data associated with a local environment in the vicinity of the vehicle comprises three-dimensional point cloud data.

9. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 2, in which the vehicle is a train.

10. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 9, in which the present state of the vehicle comprises a track identification.

11. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 2, further comprising an interface component through which the present state of the vehicle can be communicated to one or more vehicle control systems.

12. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 5, further comprising:

a map audit component identifying differences between the local map of assets and the observed assets and outputting said differences to the vehicular communication device for transmission to the remote database.

13. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 12, in which the map audit component comprises a missing asset detector identifying assets that are present within the observed assets and not present within the local map of assets, or that are not present within the observed assets and present within the local map of assets.

14. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 12, in which the map audit component comprises an asset alteration detector identifying assets within the observed assets having characteristics indicative of damage or tampering that differ from characteristics associated with the asset within the local map of assets.

15. The vehicle localization apparatus of claim 5, in which the vehicle is adapted for travel on railway tracks;

the apparatus further comprising;

a track clearance evaluation component receiving information from the feature extraction component indicating a location of a first asset, the track clearance evaluation component identifying the first asset as an obstruction and reporting the obstruction location to a backend server via the vehicular communication device.

16. A method for auditing map data by one or more network-connected servers maintaining maps within a database, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a request for map data from a vehicle, the vehicle having local environment sensors and a local map cache;

transmitting map data to the vehicle in response to the request, the map data comprising asset information, the asset information comprising identification, features and location of one or more assets; and

receiving, from the vehicle, a report indicative of one or more differences between the map data and and information detected by the vehicle local environment sensors; and

updating the database based on information within the report.

17. The method of claim 16, in which the report comprises identification and location of an asset detected by the vehicle local environment sensors and not present within the database.

18. The method of claim 16, in which the report comprises identification of an asset present within the database but not detected by the vehicle local environment sensors.

19. The method of claim 16, in which the asset information comprises one or more asset characteristics;

and in which the report comprises differences between asset characteristics with the database and asset characteristics detected by the vehicle local environment sensors.

20. The method of claim 16, in which the vehicle is a train, and the step of receiving, from the vehicle, a report indicative of one or more differences between the map data and and information detected by the vehicle local environment sensors comprises:

receiving a report indicative of obstruction clearance relative to the path of the train.