Patent Application
20050278982
Not applicable.
Not applicable.
The present invention relates generally to logistics and, more particularly, to a system for spreading ballast along railroad tracks for track maintenance.
Conventional railroads in the United States and elsewhere are typically formed by a compacted sub-grade, a bed of gravel ballast, wooden cross-ties positioned upon and within the ballast, and parallel steel rails secured to the ties. Variations of construction occur at road and bridge crossings and in other circumstances. The ballast beneath and between the ties stabilizes the positions of the ties, keeps the rails level, and provides some cushioning of the composite structure for loads imposed by rail traffic. Vibrations from the movement of tracked vehicles over the rails and weathering from wind, rain, ice, and freeze and thaw cycles can all contribute to dislodging of some of the ballast over time. Thus, in addition to other maintenance activities, it is necessary to replace ballast periodically to maintain the integrity and safety of railroads.
Ballast has been spread in the past using specially designed ballast hopper cars which include a hopper structure holding a quantity of ballast, a ballast chute communicating with the hopper, and a power operated ballast discharge door in the chute. The door can be controlled to selectively open or close to control the discharge of ballast. In some designs, the discharge door can be controlled to open outboard toward the outside of the rails, to close, or to open inboard toward the inside between the rails. Typical ballast hopper cars have a front hopper and a rear hopper, and each hopper has two transversely spaced doors, one to the left and one to the right. Thus, each hopper door can be controlled to discharge ballast outside the rails on the left and/or the right or between the rails. A typical configuration of a ballast hopper car is described in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,700, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Ballast spreading has most often been controlled manually in cooperation with human spotters who walk alongside the moving ballast cars to open or close the ballast doors as necessary. A more recent ballast spreading control technique is by the use of a radio linked controller carried by an operator who walks alongside the moving ballast cars. Both conventional control methods are slow and thus disruptive to normal traffic on the railroad section being maintained, thereby causing delays in deliveries and loss of income.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,526,339 to Herzog, et al. generally discloses methods for spreading railroad ballast with location control based on data received from the global positioning system or GPS. The GPS system, is a “constellation” of satellites traveling in orbits which distribute them around the earth, transmitting location and time signals. As originally designed, a GPS receiver, receiving signals from at least four satellites, was able to process the signals and triangulate position coordinates accurate to about ten to twenty meters. Current generations of commercially available GPS receivers, using differential GPS techniques, are able to achieve accuracies in the range of one to five meters. Such accuracy is adequate for depositing ballast where desired and inhibiting the deposit of ballast where it is not desired. Additional information regarding the development of GPS technologies can be obtained from U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,118 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,323,322. Development of the GPS system referred to herein was sponsored by the United States government. However, satellite based positioning systems developed or operated by other nations are also known.
Because railroad companies typically maintain hundreds or thousands of miles of track on a recurring schedule, the ballast replacement component of track maintenance alone can be a major undertaking in terms of equipment, materials, traffic control, labor, and management. Implementation of a GPS based system of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,526,339 can increase the accuracy and efficiency of ballast application on railways, however, the use of other techniques for controlling the application of ballast can be as good as GPS techniques and, in some applications, even better in some respects.
The present invention provides methods and apparatus for controlled spreading of ballast on a railroad on a large scale basis using multiple ballast hopper cars spreading simultaneously, at times. The system of the present invention uses various different techniques for determining where ballast needs to be applied and for controlling the opening of ballast doors to spread controlled quantities of ballast on sections where ballast is desired and to inhibit spreading ballast where not desired or not needed. The system allows the ballast train to spread ballast mostly at a high enough speed that normal traffic on the railroad on which it is operating is only minimally affected by its presence.
In practice of the present invention, a ballast train may include one or more locomotives, a control car (not required), and one or more ballast hopper cars, such as fifty hopper cars. Each hopper car may have two hoppers, left and right ballast chutes for each hopper, a ballast door for each chute, and a hydraulic actuator for each door. The actuator can be controlled to open its associated door to an inboard direction, between the rails, or to an outboard direction, outside of the rails. Each hopper can hold a known load of a particular type of ballast, and the average flow rate of a given type of ballast through a ballast door is also known. Each hopper car has car logic circuitry, referred to as a car control unit or CCU and also as a microprocessor control system, which controls operation of the hydraulic actuators and which monitors certain functions on the car.
The CCU's communicate with a network control unit or head end controller (HEC) through a network including a bus referred to at places herein as a “wireline”. The bus extends from the HEC through the CCU of each car. The HEC may be a general purpose type of computer, such as a laptop, and it can have a differential GPS receiver interfaced thereto to provide geographic coordinates. The relative location of each ballast door on each hopper car of the train will be determined in relation to a known reference location. Ordinarily, the ballast train will use a plurality of virtually identical hopper cars with known distances between the ballast doors on a given car and between the ballast door of one car and the next adjacent car.
In order to control the spreading of ballast on a length of track, it is necessary to obtain the geographic location of the track. This is most conveniently accomplished by a survey run on the track using a road vehicle equipped with flanged wheels for traveling on rails, such as a Hy-Rail vehicle (trademark of Harsco Technologies Corporation). The track survey vehicle may be equipped with a suitable instrument for determining the location and with a computer, which may be the HEC computer, and track survey software. As the survey vehicle travels along the track, the survey crew, which may be or include a “roadmaster”, marks spread zones where ballast is to be spread and non-spread zones, such as bridges, road crossings, and the like, where ballast is not to be spread. The location of the spread and no-spread zones are recorded by the instrument, which can take a variety of different forms.
Alternatively, other procedures for determining the spread and non-spread coordinates are foreseen. For example, if a previously obtained track coordinate data file is available, it is foreseen that it could be processed to designate spread and non-spread zones. Further, under some circumstances, track surveying may even be conducted on a ballast train, forward of concurrent ballast spreading activity. Under normal circumstances of pre-spread surveying, a track survey data file is created which is transferred to the HEC computer for processing during a ballast spreading run.
In addition to surveying the track for its coordinates to thereby locate zones requiring ballast and those on which ballast is not desirable, it is necessary to survey the ballast train for car identities car order, and car orientation. Each car control unit or CCU includes a designated front Discrete Auto-Manifest (DAM) relay and a designated rear DAM relay, both of which are normally inactive. These discrete lines are independent control lines residing within the interconnecting wireline cable that connects each car to the network. The hopper cars can be assembled into the ballast train in any random order and with some cars oriented front to rear while the rest are oriented rear to front. It is not economically feasible to assemble the ballast train in any particular order or to change the orientation of any particular car. However, the HEC must determine the order and orientation of the cars to enable communication of ballast door commands to the proper car during ballast spreading.
In the process of surveying the CCU's of the hopper cars, the HEC may query the CCU's to report their identities or neuron identification numbers. Then, through an iterative procedure of commanding the cars to open their front and then rear DAM relays and report their identities, the HEC can determine the order of the cars and their orientations. In particular, after the identities are determined, the HEC may broadcast a command for a selected car to activate it's front DAM relay. Then the HEC may call for any cars that see a DAM line active to identify itself. The same car is then instructed to activate its rear DAM relay and the interrogation is repeated. This process is repeated using the cars that responded to the previous interrogations until all cars are linked together. The data file of identified, ordered, and oriented hopper cars is stored as the manifest data file.
The spreading of ballast may be controlled in terms of the amount or weight of ballast spread per unit of track length. From historic experience and for accounting purposes, the required quantity of ballast may be determined in tons per mile. While such a scale is more convenient for determining the cost of the operation, it is too coarse for dynamic control of ballast spreading at a relatively high traveling speed. The track length may be divided into “buckets” which are “filled” to achieve an overall desired tons of ballast per mile. The length of the buckets may be any convenient length and may be set at one foot lengths of track, for example. Each ballast door can spread either to the inboard side or the outboard side, and both can be effected at the same time. Each bucket has designated coordinates which may include the GPS coordinates of a set of buckets along with a sequential member of such a set. The bucket coordinates are derived by processing a previously generated track survey file.
The spreading process tracks the current location of the ballast train reference point in terms of its “bucket” location, the current load of ballast in each car, the fill percentage of each bucket, the state of each door as closed or opened and in which direction, and the speed of the train. Because of the lag in response of the ballast door actuators and the movement of the ballast and because of the movement of the train, the spreading process may “look ahead” in order to effectively correlate a door state to a given bucket. The spreading process can be timer driven and begins executing a series of actions at each timer interval or “tick”. The timer interval may be at 100 milliseconds or one tenth of a second. Spreading actions are affected by the speed and location of the train and, thus, all calculations factor in the speed and location. In contrast, the flow rate of ballast through a ballast door can generally be considered to be a constant. Preferably, the ballast doors are operated in such a manner as to be considered fully closed or fully open; however, the present invention foresees the capability of operating with the ballast doors in partially open states and the use of flow sensors.
At each clock tick, the state of each ballast door in succession can be checked along with a “lookahead” set of buckets and, if the door is currently open, the fill percentage of a current bucket or set of buckets which will receive ballast from the door in the current time interval. If the door is closed, the state of the lookahead bucket set is checked to determined if opening the current door will exceed the target fill of those buckets. If not, the current door is opened. If the current door is already open, the fill percentages of the current bucket set are updated, and the lookahead bucket set is checked to determine if the current fill exceeds the target fill. If not, the door stays open.
In general, the threshold to keep a door open is not as strict as the threshold to open a closed door. In zones where spreading is desired, it is preferable to spread somewhat more than the target fill than less. Subsequent maintenance activity involves crews who will properly position the ballast and tamp it into place. Thus, a small excess of ballast is preferable to an inadequate amount. However, in the case of a no-spread zone, any ballast which is deposited may constitute a hazard, such as on a road crossing, and may require a clean-up. For processing purposes, buckets in no-spread zones are initialized as full so that lookahead routines which encounter them always require the current door to close if open or to remain closed.
The spreading process may continue until all buckets of a spreading run are filled, all ballast from the hopper cars is exhausted, until the process is interrupted by a detected malfunction in the system, or until the operator shuts the process down for any reason. Ballast may be supplied from the forward most hopper cars initially, moving rearwardly as the ballast is exhausted from the forward cars. If functions on a hopper car are inoperative, the car is simply bypassed in processing, although it may be necessary to bridge the computer network across such a “dead” car. It is possible that some buckets, particularly near the end of a spreading run, will not be completely filled. Thus, it is desirable to save data representing the final state of any unfilled buckets for a future spreading run. It may also be desirable to save the final state of all buckets and hopper cars for record keeping and accounting purposes.
The present invention contemplates a variety of methods and apparatus for determining the location where ballast is to be spread along a railway bed and applying ballast where needed. By way of example, an inertial measurement system can be employed using a gyroscope for stabilization and one or more accelerometers for determining forward and angular momentums. This inertial system can be augmented using various position reference techniques to improve the overall accuracy and reliability.
Due to drift, a position reference must be re-established from time-to-time. Various methods and techniques can be used.
One example involves using fixed mile-markers that are typically installed along railways at one mile intervals or less. One way to use the markers is for a human operator to depress a button or otherwise record when each marker is reached. A controller can then recalibrate the distance and compute the speed of the railway vehicle. The controller can open ballast hopper doors when spread zone locations are reached and leave them open long enough to cover the entirety of each spread zone before the doors are closed. Alternatively, a visual recognition device such as a camera can use stored imagery of the railway to determine when known locations are reached by comparing current images with stored images of known locations.
Laser techniques can also be used. Laser beams reflected from known wayside reference locations can be received and used to calculate the distance to the reference locations and thus the current location of the train. The velocity can be computed based on the delay of the reflected signal and the frequency shift. These data can be used by the controller to open and close ballast doors properly to apply ballast to spread zones.
Law enforcement radar equipment can be employed and may have advantages in many applications. A radar signal directed at a wayside reference point can be received after detection and used to determine the distance from the reference location and the train speed, all using known techniques that are commonly used in law enforcement applications.
Radio frequency technology using either active or passive devices is another option. A radio transponder on the train can transmit rf signals to wayside devices which send response signals back to the onboard transponder. Location and speed data are thus acquired and used by the controller to apply ballast to the spread zones. Active devices at the wayside locations require external or battery power allowing them to function effectively at distances up to one mile or more. Passive wayside devices can use the energy from the signals they receive and are inexpensive, but their range is much more limited.
Magnetic sensing devices on board the train can sense either the presence of magnets placed along the railway bed at known locations or natural variations in the magnetic field of the earth at known locations. In either case, by magnetically detecting when the train reaches known locations, the location of the train relative to spread zones can be determined. By measuring the time between consecutive locations that are sensed magnetically, the current train speed is known so that control of the ballast hopper doors can be effected.
The present invention further contemplates thermal sensing to detect the current location and speed of the train. A thermal sensor on board the train can sense the current thermal characteristics of the earth along the rail bed and compare them with a known thermal profile to determine the current train position. Objects along the railway at known locations that can be detected thermally can also be used. Fixed objects such as engines, street lights, crossing signals and other wayside devices can be sensed as the train passes them.
The ballast condition along the railway bed can be profiled using a laser, radar or other instrument to create a profile map as a survey vehicle travels on the track. The current profile can be compared with a reference profile to detect when a zone is deficient in ballast and the location and amount of the deficiency. The controller can use this information to control the ballast doors in a manner to correct the deficiency.
The present invention additionally contemplates combining the steps of obtaining a survey and then applying ballast where needed in a separate operation. In this regard, a human operator on the ballast train can record when a spread zone is encountered and signal its location as well as the ballast requirements there. The controller then quickly adjusts the ballast door operation dynamically to apply the proper amount of ballast at each zone that is deficient.
Aerial photogrammetry techniques may also be employed in accordance with the invention, using satellite imagery or photogrammetry from manned or unmanned aircraft.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in relation to the accompanying drawings wherein are set forth, by way of illustration and example, certain embodiments of this invention.
The drawings constitute a part of this specification, include exemplary embodiments of the present invention, and illustrate various objects and features thereof.
The present invention is described in detail below with reference to the attached drawing figures, wherein:
As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the present invention in virtually any appropriately detailed structure.
Referring to the drawings in more detail, the reference numeral 2 generally designates a railway ballast application system embodying the present invention. The system 2 is also referred to herein as a ballast spreading system. Without limitation on the generality of useful applications of the system 2, it is shown installed on a ballast train 3 (
The system 2 may generally make use of an on-board position control subsystem 8, a hydraulic actuator subsystem 10, a ballast discharge mechanism 12 (
The on-board position control subsystem 8 (
The system 18 is connected to a control computer 20 which receives positioning data signals from the system 18, processes same and interfaces with the actuator subsystem 10. The control computer 20, also referred to herein as a head end controller (HEC) can, for example, be a fairly conventional desktop or laptop type of personal computer, preferably with typical capabilities in currently available computers of this type.
The controller 20 includes decoder circuitry 21 which receives command signals addressed to specific hydraulic actuators or piston/cylinder units 32 in the actuator subsystem 10. The output of the decoder 21 is input to a relay bank 26 with multiple relays corresponding to and connected to respective components of the hydraulic actuator subsystem 10. The position control subsystem 8 is connected to a suitable, on-board electrical power source 22, which can utilize a solar photovoltaic collector panel 24 for charging or supplementing same. Alternatively, the power source 22 may be a conventional DC charging bus, as is found on conventional trains for powering electrical subsystems on railroad cars.
The hydraulic actuator subsystem 10 (
The ballast discharge mechanism 12 (
As will be described in more detail below, the position control subsystem 8 is preprogrammed with various data corresponding to the operation of the logistic system 2. For example, discharge operations of the ballast discharge mechanism 12 can be programmed to occur at particular locations. Thus, ballast 44 can be applied to a particular section of rail track 5 by inputting the corresponding track coordinates and programming the position control subsystem 8 to open the hopper door assemblies 40 in the desired directions and for predetermined durations. The data obtained by the system 18 and used by the on-board position control subsystem 8 can provide relatively precise information concerning the position of the hopper car 4.
The reference numeral 102 (
The position control system 104 include a computer 106 which may interface with a transponder or sensor 108 for detecting position markers 110. For example, the position markers 110 can be fixed wayside reference points located alongside the rail track 5 whereby the device 108 provides a signal to the computer 106 when the railcar 4 is positioned in proximity to a respective position marker 110. The position control subsystem 104 can alternatively include an image sensor such as a camera 116 which optically or visually senses wayside images 112. The computer 106 can interface with an hydraulic actuator subsystem 10, such as that described above, to control the discharge of ballast 44 therefrom in relation to the detected position.
The material applying or ballast spreading system described above is principally directed to controlling the material spreading activities of a single rail car under position coordinate control by a computer. Ballast spread by a single car, or several such cars, can provide some utility in relatively small operations, such as small scale maintenance operations. However, rail maintenance is often a very large undertaking, involving hundreds or thousands of miles of tracks on a recurring basis. The present invention is adaptable to such larger scale rail maintenance operations.
The detector 209 outputs position data, such as latitude and longitude coordinates, in a format which can be further processed by the HEC 205.
The HEC 205 may be a desktop or laptop type of personal computer. Currently available personal computers based on Pentium III (Intel) or AMD Athlon (American Micro Devices) class of microprocessors, or better, are adequate for use as the HEC 205, although not specifically required.
The network 211 may be any suitable type of computer network to allow communication between the HEC 205 and the CCU's 207, and possibly the GPS receiver 215. In the system 201, the network 211 is preferably based on the Lontalk and Neuron components and protocols of Echelon Corporation of Palo Alto, Calif. The network 211 may be a relatively low bandwidth network since only low data density control commands, status reports, and the like are required to be carried. Alternatively, other types of networks and communication protocols may be suitable for use in the system 201.
The CCU controller 222 is programmed for certain automatic functions, such as “dead man” type functions wherein the CCU controller 222 causes the associated ballast doors 40 to close after a communication timeout in which no data communications are received by the CCU controller 222 from the HEC 205. This is a safety feature which causes the cessation of ballast spreading or prevents the initiation of ballast spreading in the event of loss of control communication.
Referring to
For the most part, the survey process 260 can gather all the required location data to conduct a ballast spreading run. In some circumstances, it may be necessary to conduct parts of the survey on foot to mark starting and ending locations of spread zones or no-spread zones. Additionally it may be necessary to mark some zones which are not appropriate for ballast spreading using the system 201. For example, if multiple transitions from spreading to non-spreading status would be required, there may not be enough time to cycle the hydraulic actuators 32 because of lags in hydraulic fluid supply. In such circumstances, it may be necessary to spread ballast on such a zone by more conventional techniques.
In order to control the individual ballast doors 40 of the cars 4, it is necessary for the HEC 205 to “know” the position of each door 40 relative to the reference point 215 and to be able to “talk” to or communicate with each individual hydraulic actuator 32. The system 201 includes a train manifest process 280 (
Next, a car sequence/orientation survey loop 284 is executed. In the loop 284, the front DAM relay 224 and rear DAM relay 226 are sequentially opened, checks made for any responding CCU's 207, and setting any responding CCU to a no response state. At 286, the command is broadcast to a selected CCU's to open their front DAM relay 224. A command for any CCU to respond at 288 is made. Any CCU which responds with its front DAM relay 224 closed is determined to be reversed. At step 290, the car 4 with the responding CCU 207 is designated as a starting point for manifest and as reversed in orientation and is set to the no-response mode. A test is made at 294 for any responding CCU. If so, the car 4 with the responding CCU 207 is determined at 296 to be forwardly oriented, its Neuron ID is stored as the first car 4, and the CCU responding is set to no-response mode. At test 298, if all CCU's 207 have not been identified and the orientation of their cars 4 determined, the loop 284 returns control to step 286. The loop 284 is repeated until all CCU's 207 which were identified in step 282 have been processed as to their sequential order and orientation. When that happens at 298, the manifest data is stored as a manifest data file at 302.
In the ballast spreading control process 310 shown in
The illustrated ballast spread control process 310 initiates a ballast spread control loop 330 at 100 millisecond or tenth of a second intervals, as shown by the wait step 332. During each loop 330, the HEC 205 determines a reference track position at 334, based on the location data, checks the state of all ballast doors 40 at 336, checks the state of buckets at 338 which can be affected by a door 40 currently being checked, updates all the door states at 340 by either maintaining the status quo or changing the state as required by conditions detected or calculated, updates all bucket states at 342 which have changed by addition of ballast 44. The control loop 330 continues until a test at 346 detects that the last bucket has been passed by the ballast train 3, at which point control exists at 348 from the ballast spread control process 310.
The actual door state test at 354 determines if each ballast door 40 is currently open or closed. Depending on the detected state of the current door 40, the process 330 will enter a closed door loop 356 or an open door loop 358.
If the current door is closed, the closed door loop 356 checks a lookahead set of buckets at 360. The lookahead set of buckets are buckets positioned at such a distance ahead of the current door that, at the currently detected train speed and with the known response lag of the actuator 32, a change in door state “now” will begin to affect such lookahead buckets. The loop 356 considers a set of lookahead buckets since a given processing interval and train speed may so require. The set may also comprise a single bucket. The loop 356 calculates at 362 whether the current or actual fill of the test bucket plus a project fill from opening the current door would be less than the target fill for the bucket. If so, the current door 40 is opened 364; if not it stays closed at 366. All buckets in the current lookahead set are processed until a test at 368 determines that the last bucket has been processed. Afterwards, the loop 356 advances to the next door at 370.
If a door is detected as open at 354, the states of fill of a set of buckets which will receive ballast from the currently open door in the current clock tick interval are updated at 372. Afterward, the door open loop 358 is somewhat similar to the door closed loop 356 and includes a fill test 376 which determines if the actual fill of the lookahead buckets is less than the target fill. If not, that is the target is currently exceeded, the current door 40 is closed at 378. If the test 376 is true, the door stays open at 380. The lookahead loop exits at 382 when the last lookahead bucket for the current door 40 has been processed. Then the loop 358 proceeds to the next door at 384. When the last door has been checked, as indicated by the test 386, the process 330 waits for the next clock tick at 388.
The door open loop 358 allows some overfill of the buckets. As a practical track maintenance matter, this is preferable to not enough ballast available. However, it is highly undesirable to spread ballast in a no-spread zone 219, which may be a road crossing. Such an occurrence may constitute a road traffic hazard. For this reason, buckets in the no-spread zones always causes the current door 40 to be closed at 378.
The logic of the closed loop fill test 356 is designed to cause multiple ballast doors 40 to open if appropriate to quickly fill the desired buckets. It is desirable to maximize the number of filled buckets in the system 201 rather than partially fill a larger number of buckets.
As the ballast is depleted from hoppers 41, they are bypassed in processing and more rearward hoppers 41 are activated. Thus, ballast spreading proceeds from the forward hoppers 41 to the more rearward hoppers.
It is to be understood that while certain forms of the present invention have been illustrated and described herein, it is not to be limited to the specific forms or arrangement of parts described and shown.
In this manner, the mile markers 400 are visually detected, and a manual signal is provided by way of the button 402 to the HEC 205 so that the HEC can activate the control system in a manner to open the ballast doors when a spread zone is encountered and close the doors at the end of the spread zone.
In accordance with the system shown in
With reference to
The wayside transponders 434 can be either active or passive devices. If the transponders 434 are active devices, they require battery power or external power for operation. Such devices can be effective at distances in excess of one mile. Using passive transponders 434 has the advantage of being inexpensive and requiring no external power. The radiated power received by the interrogation signals 436 can be used by passive transponders for transmission of the response signals 438. However, the range of such a passive device is typically between 15 and 50 feet for reliable operation.
The sensor 440 can instead make use of variations in the earth's magnetic field at known locations along the rail bed. This type of sensor requires high sensitivity in order to interpret variations in the magnetic field of the earth reliably enough to provide dependable location information. Further, the effects of the rotation of the earth and gravitational disturbances from the moon need to be taken into account, along with other minute disturbances that can occur. However, such a system has the advantage that there is no need to place magnetic devices or other wayside devices along the railway.
Thermal sensing techniques can also be used.
Alternatively, the sensor 444 can make use of man made thermal devices that are located along the railway. For example, a heat generating engine 448 may be located at a known position along the railway. Street lights 450, crossing signals 452, traffic signals 454 and other miscellaneous wayside instrumentation, power units or buildings at known locations may also be sensed by sensor 444 and used to determine the train location. A particularly strong heat absorbing surface 458 along the railway may also be sensed to determine the train location.
The ballast spread zones are marked by an integrated GPS system as described, and the inertial system 14 serves as a backup system to the GPS system. As shown in
The fiber optic gyroscope 600 detects changes in heading using known gyroscopic techniques and instrumentation. The accelerometers 602 act to detect changes in acceleration and deceleration. The tilt sensors 604 detect changes in vertical position perpendicular to the rails along which the train travels. The Doppler sensor 606 provides a wireless means for detecting the ground speed of the train.
These sensors and/or systems may be used together in various combinations or separately and independently to accurately and repeatedly mark spread zones along the railway and control the application of ballast to spread zones.
The present invention also contemplates a unique method and apparatus for surveying a railway bed. With reference to
The present invention further contemplates a manual ballast application system in which the survey and application are done “on the fly”. In a system of this type, the group of interconnected rail cars are transported along the railway. A trained operator on board the train visually detects when a zone along the railway bed that is being approached by the train is deficient in ballast, along with the location of the zone and the extent of the ballast deficiency. The operator then signals the HEC 205 that a spread zone is being approached and provides information as to its location and the extent of the ballast deficiency. The controller then operates in the manner described previously to open or partially open at least one of the ballast doors when the no spread zone location is reached in order to discharge ballast at a rate sufficient to make up the deficiency of ballast at the spread zone. When the end of the spread zone is reached, the door is closed in order to discontinue the application of ballast to the railway pad.
Because the survey and application are combined using this technique, considerable time and expense are saved. However, relatively high level personnel are normally required to assure accuracy in the calling out of the spread/no spread zones along with the application rate requirements. Such a system finds its greatest utility in low risk spreading areas such as areas where there is an absence of no spread zones.
Referring first to
The ballast train 506 carrying one or more railcars that are operable to spread ballast in the manner previously described travels along a railway bed 508. The train 506 obtains GPS information from a constellation of GPS satellites 510 and differential GPS correction information as an option.
Images that are captured at an airborne location by the satellite 500 with information indicating the location of the images can be directly transmitted to the ballast train 506, and the onboard computer in the train 506 can automatically recognize track and roadbed requirements using image recognition.
Alternatively, the image information can be transmitted to a base station (not shown) where a more thorough analysis of the information can be performed. The base station can then transmit the analyzed information to the train that is used for spreading of ballast.
In this manner, the ballast train 506 is provided with accurate and reliable information as to locations of ballast spread zones that are deficient in ballast. Train 506 can then discharge ballast at the no spread zones as the railcars that carry the ballast are transported over the no spread zones. The image information captured by the satellite 500 can be used to determine the amount of ballast that needs to be applied in order to make up the deficiency in each zone that has a ballast deficiency. Consequently, the correct amount of ballast is discharged at the proper locations to make up for any deficiencies that are present along the railway bed 508.
With reference to
Using this technique, ballast train 520 can apply ballast from the railcars to each of the no spread zones that are deficient in ballast, and the correct amount of ballast can be applied in each instance.
Other photogrammetric methods can be used for survey data collection, including a remotely piloted vehicle (RPV) or an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) such as the vehicle 540 shown in
The UAV 540 (or RPV) may be sent out to survey the railway bed from a launching facility which may be the bed of truck 544 or a railcar formed as part of the ballast train 546. The flight of the vehicle 540 is directed by the onboard computer in the ballast train or another land based vehicle such as the truck 540 or another land base. The vehicle 540 has geographical information stored onboard as well as automated flight control equipment that insures complete autonomy in data collection. It can also be monitored by a ground based system for flight course modifications or emergency situations.
The vehicle 540 obtains resolution images that provide information as to the locations of ballast spread zones along the railway bed 548 so that the ballast train 546 can apply the needed ballast to each ballast spread zone in the manner described previously. It is contemplated that information as to the locations of the ballast spread zones and the images captured by the vehicle 540 will be transmitted directly to the train as indicated at 550. The information can be analyzed and used by the train 546 for the accurate application of ballast.
Unmanned vehicle 540 can be recovered by directing it to a landing facility using a predetermined landing sequence. Direct recovery from the launching vehicle 544 or other launching facility can also be implemented.
From the foregoing it will be seen that this invention is one well adapted to attain all ends and objects hereinabove set forth together with the other advantages which are obvious and which are inherent to the structure.
It will be understood that certain features and subcombinations are of utility and may be employed without reference to other features and subcombinations. This is contemplated by and is within the scope of the claims.
Since many possible embodiments may be made of the invention without departing from the scope thereof, it is to be understood that all matter herein set forth or shown in the accompanying drawings is to be interpreted as illustrative, and not in a limiting sense.
