Railroad train monitoring system
First Claim
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1. A monitoring system for monitoring performance criteria of a railcar, said railcar including a car body and a plurality of trucks each carrying one or more wheel sets mounted on said railcar, comprising:
- one or more sensing units disposed on the railcar, each of said sensing units comprising;
one or more sensors disposed on said sensing unit, said sensors sensing parameters relevant to the operating performance of said railcar;
a computational element disposed on said sensing unit programmed to analyze said sensed parameters to detect indications of faults or impending failures; and
a communication element disposed on said sensing unit for transmitting data, wherein said communication element is kept in a passive, low-power state, but is powered on;
periodically, to report that said sensing units is operational;
orwhen said computational element has detected an indication of a fault orimpending failure.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Railcar monitoring utilizes instrumented, flexible pads supported within the truck pedestal jaws on the bearing adapters. The pads contain sensors for monitoring temperature pressure, shifting loads, truck hunting and the like and have circuitry for processing information received from the sensors and for processing and reporting departures of performance variables to a remote source. The system cyclically activates polling each pad on a car and communicates signals of critical departures and car identity to a remote source.
17 Citations
19 Claims
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1. A monitoring system for monitoring performance criteria of a railcar, said railcar including a car body and a plurality of trucks each carrying one or more wheel sets mounted on said railcar, comprising:
one or more sensing units disposed on the railcar, each of said sensing units comprising; one or more sensors disposed on said sensing unit, said sensors sensing parameters relevant to the operating performance of said railcar; a computational element disposed on said sensing unit programmed to analyze said sensed parameters to detect indications of faults or impending failures; and a communication element disposed on said sensing unit for transmitting data, wherein said communication element is kept in a passive, low-power state, but is powered on; periodically, to report that said sensing units is operational;
orwhen said computational element has detected an indication of a fault or impending failure. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A monitoring system for monitoring performance criteria of a railcar, said railcar including a car body and a plurality of trucks each carrying one or more wheel sets mounted on said railcar, comprising:
one or more sensing units disposed on a railcar, each of said sensing units comprising; one or more sensors integral with said one or more sensing units, said sensors sensing parameters relevant to the operating performance of said railcar; a computational element integral with said sensing unit programmed to analyze said sensed parameters to detect indications of faults or impending failures; and a communication element integral with said one or more sensing units for transmitting data, wherein said communication element is kept in a passive, low-power state, but is powered on; periodically, to report that said one or more sensing units is operational;
or when said computational element has detected an indication of a fault or impending failure.- View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19)
Specification