Method and apparatus for detecting hot rail car surfaces
First Claim
Patent Images
1. An apparatus for detecting a hot rail car surface comprising:
- an infrared sensor for acquiring an infrared signal from a rail car surface of a rail car and transducing said infrared signal into an electrical signal;
a rank filter for filtering said electrical signal to produce a filtered array;
a first peak detector for detecting a maximum filtered value of said filtered array; and
a first comparator for comparing said maximum filtered value to a detection threshold to produce a filtered alarm signal.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
In one embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus for detecting a hot rail car surface comprises: an infrared sensor for acquiring an infrared signal from a rail car surface of a rail car and transducing the infrared signal into an electrical signal; a rank filter for filtering the electrical signal to produce a filtered array; a first peak detector for detecting a maximum filtered value of the filtered array; and a first comparator for comparing the maximum filtered value to a detection threshold to produce a filtered alarm signal.
-
Citations
18 Claims
-
1. An apparatus for detecting a hot rail car surface comprising:
-
an infrared sensor for acquiring an infrared signal from a rail car surface of a rail car and transducing said infrared signal into an electrical signal;
a rank filter for filtering said electrical signal to produce a filtered array;
a first peak detector for detecting a maximum filtered value of said filtered array; and
a first comparator for comparing said maximum filtered value to a detection threshold to produce a filtered alarm signal. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
-
-
7. An apparatus for detecting a hot rail car surface comprising:
-
an infrared sensor for acquiring an infrared signal from a rail car surface of a rail car and transducing said infrared signal into an electrical signal;
a rank filter for filtering said electrical signal to produce a filtered array;
a first peak detector for detecting a maximum filtered value of said filtered array;
a first comparator for comparing said maximum filtered value to a detection threshold to produce a filtered alarm signal;
a wireless transceiver for acquiring rail car surface characteristics from a wireless tag mounted on said rail car;
a filter parameter calculator for calculating a filter length and rank of said rank filter as a function of said rail car surface characteristics;
an unfiltered signal buffer for buffering said electrical signal to produce an unfiltered array;
a second peak detector for detecting a maximum unfiltered value of said unfiltered array;
a second comparator for comparing said maximum unfiltered value to said detection threshold to produce an unfiltered alarm signal; and
an alarm comparator for conspiring said unfiltered alarm signal to said filtered alarm signal to produce a censored false alarm signal. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9)
-
-
10. A method for detecting hot rail car surfaces, the method comprising:
-
acquiring an infrared signal from a rail car surface of a rail car;
transducing said infrared signal into an electrical signal;
filtering said electrical signal using a rank filter to produce a filtered array;
detecting a maximum filtered value of said filtered array; and
comparing said maximum filtered value to a detection threshold to produce a filtered alarm signal. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. A method for detecting hot rail car surfaces, the method comprising:
-
acquiring an infrared signal from a rail car surface of a rail car;
transducing said infrared signal into an electrical signal;
filtering said electrical signal using a rank filter to produce a filtered array;
detecting a maximum filtered value of said filtered array;
comparing said maximum filtered value to a detection threshold to produce a filtered alarm signal;
acquiring rail car surface characteristics from a wireless tag mounted on said rail car;
calculating a filter length and rank of said rank filter as a function of said rail car surface characteristics;
buffering said electrical signal to produce an unfiltered array;
detecting a maximum unfiltered value of said unfiltered array;
comparing said maximum unfiltered value to said detection threshold to produce an unfiltered alarm signal; and
comparing said unfiltered alarm signal to said filtered alarm signal to produce a censored false alarm signal. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18)
-
Specification