Data recorder system and unit for a vehicle

• US 10,198,882 B2
• Filed: 08/19/2016
• Issued: 02/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wabtec Corporation (Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Wabtec Corporation (Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation)
• Inventors: Allwardt, Theodore E., Bittle, Khim, Haas, Carl L., Kurz, Brian
• Primary Examiner(s): Cheung, Mary
• Application Number:
  US15/241,662
• Publication Number:
  US 20160358386A1
• Time in Patent Office: 900 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/00 Registering or indicating the working of vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/08 Registering or indicating performance data other than driving, working, idle, or waiting time, with or without registering driving, working, idle or waiting time
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0866 the electronic data carrier being a digital video recorder in combination with video camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00103 specially adapted for radio transmission, e.g. via satellites H04N1/00098 takes precedence

Abstract

Disclosed is a data recording unit and data recording system for use in connection with a vehicle, such as a train, a locomotive of a train, a railcar of a train, and the like.

Claims

1. A data recorder unit for a vehicle, comprising:

at least one data recorder enclosure configured to house at least one internal component;

at least one data storage device comprising at least one crash-hardened memory and at least one non-crash-hardened memory, wherein at least one of the at least one crash-hardened memory and the at least one non-crash-hardened memory is located in the enclosure; and

at least one data processing unit located in the enclosure and configured to directly or indirectly receive data from a plurality of data inputs and synchronize data from the plurality of data inputs based at least partially on at least one of the following;

time data from at least one internal time source, time data from at least one data input of the plurality of data inputs, or any combination thereof,

wherein the at least one data processing unit is configured to store at least a portion of the data on the at least one non-crash-hardened memory and the at least one crash-hardened memory substantially in parallel.

2. The data recorder unit of claim 1, wherein the plurality of data inputs comprises at least one of the following:

an Ethernet input, a serial input, a parallel input, an Ethernet interface, a serial interface, a parallel interface, a wireless interface, an Ethernet port, a serial port, a parallel port, or any combination thereof.

3. The data recorder unit of claim 1, wherein the plurality of data inputs comprise at least one video camera, wherein the data received from the at least one video camera comprises video data corresponding with independent time data, and wherein the video data received from the at least one video camera is synchronized with the at least one internal time source based at least partially on the independent time data.

4. The data recorder unit of claim 1, wherein the plurality of data inputs comprise at least two video cameras, wherein the data received from each video camera of the at least two video cameras comprises video data corresponding with independent time data, and wherein the video data received from the at least two video cameras is synchronized based at least partially on the independent time data.

5. The data recorder unit of claim 1, wherein at least two data inputs of the plurality of data inputs are stored in separate logical partitions of the at least one crash-hardened memory and/or the at least one non-crash-hardened memory.