Autonomous vehicle railroad crossing warning system

• US 7,769,544 B2
• Filed: 05/07/2002
• Issued: 08/03/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ansaldo STS SPA
• Original Assignee: Ansaldo STS SPA
• Inventors: Blesener, James L., Melby, Gordon M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Keith; Jack
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen; Chuong P
• Application Number:
  US10/476,750
• Publication Number:
  US 20040249571A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,010 Days
• Field of Search: 701/1, 701/19, 701/23, 701/200, 701/207, 701213-215, 701/301, 340901-907, 340/988, 3406931-6933, 246/124, 246/125, 4553431-3436
• US Class Current: 701/301
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 2205/04 Satellite based navigation systems, e.g. global positioning system [GPS]
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 2207/02 using light-emitting diodes [LEDs]
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 29/28 electrically operated
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/164 Centralised systems, e.g. external to vehicles

Abstract

An autonomous vehicle collision/crossing warning system provides for simple, inexpensive and decentralized installation, operation and maintenance of a reliable vehicle collision/crossing warning system. The autonomous warning system preferably utilizes a single frequency TDM radio communication network with GPS clock synchronization, time slot arbitration and connectionless UDP protocol to broadcast messages among vehicles and components in the warning system. Adaptive localized mapping of components of interest within the warning system eliminates the need for centralized databases or coordination and control systems and enables new vehicles and warning systems to be easily added to the system in a decentralized manner. Preferably, stationary warning systems are deployed as multiple self-powered units each equipped to receive broadcast messages and to communicate with the other units by a low power RF channel in a redundant Master-Slave configuration. The communication schemes are preferably arranged for low duty cycle operation to decrease power consumption.

Claims

1. An autonomous vehicle railroad crossing warning system comprising:

a plurality of crossing controllers located in proximity to at least one railroad crossing,

at least one of the plurality of crossing controllers located in proximity to the at least one railroad crossing being associated with a stationary warning device located at the at least one railroad crossing;

a train controller associated with a train traveling along a rail line through the at least one railroad crossing, and

a vehicle controller associated with a vehicle located in proximity to the at least one railroad crossing;

wherein each train controller, vehicle controller, and crossing controller includes a radio transceiver configured to utilize a single frequency time domain multiplexed (TDM) radio communication protocol, that is a connectionless user datagram protocol (UDP);

wherein at least one of the plurality of crossing controllers located in proximity to the railroad crossing includes a global positioning system (GPS) receiver configured to provide the radio transmitter with GPS clock synchronization to broadcast messages to at least one of;

the train controllers, vehicle controllers, and the plurality of crossing controllers, within range of the radio transmitter in the warning system; and

wherein at least one of the plurality of crossing controllers located in proximity to the at least one railroad crossing is configured to receive and process data from broadcast messages from a multiplicity of the train controllers and the vehicle controllers in a vicinity of the at least one railroad crossing and is configured to screen out at least one of the train controllers and the vehicle controllers on a course that will not intersect the at least one railroad crossing.

2. The autonomous warning system of claim 1 wherein each controller is configured to utilize a time slot arbitration relying on the GPS clock synchronization to determine when to broadcast messages from that controller.

3. The autonomous warning system of claim 1 wherein the train controller for each train and the vehicle controller for each vehicle is configured to periodically and autonomously broadcast messages which include data for their respective heading, speed and location.

4. The autonomous warning system of claim 3 wherein the crossing controller for each stationary warning device is configured to determine whether to activate the associated warning device based on calculating a position of at least one of the train and the vehicle relative to the stationary warning device based on data in the broadcast message of at least one of the train controller and the vehicle controller.

5. The autonomous warning system of claim 3 wherein the controller for at least one of the train and the vehicle is configured to determine whether to activate an associated warning device based on calculating a course of at least one other of at least one of the train and the vehicle relative to a course of the at least one of the train and the vehicle for that controller based on data in the broadcast messages for the controller associated with the at least one other of at least one of the train and the vehicle.

6. An autonomous vehicle railroad crossing warning system for a plurality of components associated with at least one railroad crossing in the railroad crossing warning system, the components including vehicles and stationary objects, the railroad crossing warning system comprising:

a plurality of controllers located in proximity to at least one railroad crossing, each controller operably associated with one of the plurality of components in the warning system and including a radio transceiver configured to utilize a single frequency time domain multiplexed (TDM) radio communication protocol, and

a global positioning system (GPS) receiver configured to provide the radio transmitter with GPS clock synchronization to broadcast messages to at least some of the components in the warning system including at least one train traveling along a rail line through the at least one railroad crossing and at least one warning device located at the at least one railroad crossing,

wherein each controller is configured to utilize data from a broadcast message of nearby components to autonomously construct an adaptive localized map representing at least a location of nearby stationary components of interest within the warning system for the controller associated with that component, and

wherein the controller associated with the at least one train is configured to collect and propagate at least a portion of the adaptive localized map to any controller requiring updated data when the at least one train is within range of the radio transceiver of the controller.

7. The autonomous warning system of claim 6 wherein the broadcast messages from each stationary controller selectively include representations of the adaptive localized map in order to propagate and update the location of nearby stationary components.

8. An autonomous vehicle railroad crossing warning system comprising:

a master controller that is stationary and located in proximity to at least one railroad crossing and includes a global positioning system (GPS) receiver,

at least one slave controller without a global positioning system (GPS) receiver that is stationary and located in proximity to the at least one railroad crossing,

at least one vehicle controller associated with a vehicle in proximity to the railroad crossing,

at least one train controller associated with a train traveling along a rail line through the at least one railroad crossing, and

at least one warning device located at the at least one railroad crossing;

wherein each master controller, slave controller, vehicle controller, and train controller includes a radio transceiver that configured to utilize a single frequency time domain multiplexed (TDM) radio communication protocol;

wherein the master controller is configured to provide the radio transmitter with GPS clock synchronization to broadcast calibration messages to the at least one slave controller;

wherein the master controller and the at least one slave controller are deployed as a plurality of self-powered units each equipped to receive broadcast messages over the TDM radio communication protocol and configured to communicate with the at least one train controller, the at least one vehicle controllers, and the other units by a low power radio frequency (RF) channel; and

wherein communications on the low power RF channel are synchronized by the master controller with periodic GPS time stamps such that no GPS operations are required by any slave controller.

9. The autonomous warning system of claim 8 wherein the stationary self-powered units are configured to operate on a low power RF channel on a low duty cycle operation to decrease power consumption among the stationary self-powered units.

10. The autonomous warning system of claim 8 wherein phase and amplitude information of broadcast messages received by each of the units is transmitted over the low power RF channel and used to differentiate valid broadcast messages from extraneous triggers.