Apparatus and method for monitoring of infrastructure condition
First Claim
1. A monitoring system, comprising:
- an inspection system mountable on a vehicle that is configured to travel over an expanse of rail track, the rail track having a plurality of track blocks, and the inspection system configured to acquire track data for at least some track blocks along the expanse of rail track;
a positioning system mountable on the vehicle and configured to determine a location of the vehicle on the expanse of rail track and generate location data indicative of the track block associated with that vehicle location;
a communications device connected to the inspection system and to the positioning system to transmit the track data and the location data to a remote location; and
a centralized computing system positioned at the remote location to receive the transmitted track data and location data, the centralized computing system programmed to;
determine a current probability of a track condition for a track block based on the track data; and
combine the current track condition probability for the track block with a previously determined cumulative track condition probability for the track block to provide an updated track condition probability for the track block.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for vehicle-centric infrastructure monitoring system includes an inspection system mountable on a vehicle configured to travel over an expanse of rail track having a plurality of track blocks. The inspection system acquires track data for at least some track blocks along the expanse of rail track. The monitoring system also includes a positioning system to determine a location of the vehicle and generate location data indicative of an associated track block location, a communications device to transmit the track/location data to a remote location, and a centralized computing system positioned at the remote location to receive the transmitted track/location data. The centralized computing system is programmed to determine a current probability of a track condition for a track block and combine the current track condition probability with a previously determined cumulative track condition probability to provide an updated track condition probability for the track block.
61 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A monitoring system, comprising:
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an inspection system mountable on a vehicle that is configured to travel over an expanse of rail track, the rail track having a plurality of track blocks, and the inspection system configured to acquire track data for at least some track blocks along the expanse of rail track; a positioning system mountable on the vehicle and configured to determine a location of the vehicle on the expanse of rail track and generate location data indicative of the track block associated with that vehicle location; a communications device connected to the inspection system and to the positioning system to transmit the track data and the location data to a remote location; and a centralized computing system positioned at the remote location to receive the transmitted track data and location data, the centralized computing system programmed to; determine a current probability of a track condition for a track block based on the track data; and combine the current track condition probability for the track block with a previously determined cumulative track condition probability for the track block to provide an updated track condition probability for the track block. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method, comprising:
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acquiring track data and position data, with, respectively, an inspection system and a positioning system, during a current pass of a vehicle over an expanse of rail track; transmitting the track data and the position data to a remotely located centralized computing system; determining a location-indexed track condition of the expanse of rail track at the remotely located centralized computing system based on the processed track data and the processed position data acquired from the current pass; and combining the determined location-indexed track condition of the expanse of rail track from the current pass with a location-indexed track condition of the expanse of rail track determined from track data and condition data acquired from at least one previous pass of the vehicle over the expanse of rail track to determine an aggregate location-indexed track condition of the expanse of rail track. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A method, comprising:
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performing a series of passes of a vehicle over an expanse of track; acquiring track data, with an inspection system, for a plurality of discrete locations along the expanse of railroad track from the series of passes; acquiring position data, with a positioning system, for the plurality of discrete locations along the expanse of railroad track from the series of passes; location-indexing the track data to the discrete locations based on the position data; during each pass in the series of passes, transmitting the location-indexed track data to a remotely located centralized computing system; determining at the centralized computing system, for each pass in the series of passes, a track condition probability for each of the plurality of discrete locations based on the location-indexed track data; combining the track condition probabilities from each pass in the series of passes for each of the plurality of discrete locations to determine a final track condition probability for each of the plurality of discrete locations; and determining a control strategy for a future pass of the vehicle along the expanse of rail track based on the final track condition probability for each of the plurality of discrete locations. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25)
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Specification