Wayside measurement of railcar wheel to rail geometry
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A system comprising:
- an imaging component located adjacent to a location of a pair of rails, wherein the imaging component is configured to concurrently acquire image data for opposing wheels on a railcar wheelset as the wheels travel along the pair of rails; and
a computer system configured to evaluate the railcar wheelset by performing a method comprising;
deriving three dimensional space coordinates of a plurality of image data points corresponding to at least two distinct portions of each of the opposing wheels from the image data;
fitting a plane to the three dimensional space coordinates of each of the opposing wheels; and
calculating a plurality of wheel alignment measures for the railcar wheelset, the plurality of wheel alignment measures including an angle of attack and a tracking position for each of the opposing wheels.
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Abstract
Considerable damage to rails, wheels, and trucks can result from geometric anomalies in the wheelsets, rails, and truck hardware. A solution for identifying and quantifying geometric anomalies known to influence the service life of the rolling stock or the ride comfort for the case of passenger service is described. The solution comprises an optical system, which can be configured to accurately perform measurements at mainline speeds (e.g., greater than 100 mph). The optical system includes laser line projectors and imaging cameras and can utilize structured light triangulation.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A system comprising:
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an imaging component located adjacent to a location of a pair of rails, wherein the imaging component is configured to concurrently acquire image data for opposing wheels on a railcar wheelset as the wheels travel along the pair of rails; and a computer system configured to evaluate the railcar wheelset by performing a method comprising; deriving three dimensional space coordinates of a plurality of image data points corresponding to at least two distinct portions of each of the opposing wheels from the image data; fitting a plane to the three dimensional space coordinates of each of the opposing wheels; and calculating a plurality of wheel alignment measures for the railcar wheelset, the plurality of wheel alignment measures including an angle of attack and a tracking position for each of the opposing wheels. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A system for evaluating a railcar wheelset for rail alignment, the system comprising:
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a set of cameras configured to acquire image data of a portion of a wheel rim surface of a wheel of the railcar wheelset as the railcar wheelset travels along rails; and a computer system configured to process the image data to calculate a set of wheel alignment measures by performing a method comprising; forming Cartesian coordinates of a plurality of image data points on the wheel rim surface of the wheel; and converting the Cartesian coordinates into a set of wheel alignment measures, wherein the set of wheel alignment measures include an angle of attack for the wheel. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A method for evaluating a railcar wheelset for rail alignment, the method comprising:
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processing image data of a railroad wheel of the railcar wheelset traveling along a rail to at least one of;
reduce noise in the image data or remove outlier points from the image data;deriving three dimensional space coordinates of a plurality of image data points corresponding to at least two distinct portions of the railroad wheel from the processed image data; fitting a plane to the three dimensional space coordinates; comparing an alignment of the fitted plane with a plane of the rail; determining whether the alignment of the fitted plane is within an acceptable variation parameter for wheel alignment of the railroad wheel with the rail; and determining whether any of a set of wheelset alignment conditions is present based on the wheel alignment of the railroad wheel with the rail. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification