Method for acquisition and display of signaling equipment status

Abstract

A systems and method is provided for collecting, storing, and analyzing the status and operation of a railroad grade level crossing, and generating reports and alarms in response to status and current or predicted failures. The system includes a telemetry unit positioned at a railroad grade crossing, a data collector, and report generation engines.

Description

The locations at which railroad tracks occupy a portion of the thoroughfares intended for automobile or pedestrian traffic are referred to as grade level crossings. Any such location engenders a risk of collision between the occupiers of the thoroughfares and the trains that transit along the intersecting rails. To mitigate that risk, many such intersections include various signaling mechanisms to warn thoroughfare traffic of the impending arrival of a train so that they may avoid occupying the track area at that time.

The signaling mechanism is controlled by instruments that receive inputs from various train detection sensors and convert the inputs into electrical commands that operate relays, which in turn enable various signaling sub systems such as flashing red lights or the dropping of a gate arm. These instruments are typically housed in a weather resistant signal instrument cabinet located within a short distance of the rail crossing.

Such signaling mechanisms are critical to the safe sharing of the areas that are part of both the roadway and the railway. Any failure of the signaling mechanism at a critical moment can result in property damage, injuries, or fatalities. Therefore, such signaling mechanisms are designed to be specifically robust and reliable as part of the risk mitigation to the crossing.

Regardless of precautions taken to assure reliable functioning of a signaling mechanism, it may still fail due to physical damage, wearing of the components, vandalism, power loss, weathering, and so forth. Such failures typically require maintenance to correct and render the crossing safe. Therefore, it is important to have means to inform the relevant authorities or maintainers of the operational status of the crossing's signaling mechanism, and in particular any failures that require attention and maintenance.

To that end, devices presently exist which monitor various states of the crossing's signaling mechanism in order to determine if it is operating correctly. These devices typically reside within the signal instrument cabinet and are connected by wires to the signal control relays to determine the current state of the signaling mechanism. Specifically, state information may be used to determined if the crossing signaling mechanism is in a valid state or not. For example, an alarm may be raised if a signal condition has been active or inactive for too long a time.

Existing devices have means to transmit alarm messages to remote locations or persons via cell phone or other communications links. Text or email messages may be generated and transmitted in this way to alert cognizant parties.

In present devices the conditions which can generate an alarm are limited to specific predefined input states such as a sensor or control which has been active for an extended amount of time, or several inputs having been active or inactive simultaneously.

There is no mechanism for generating an alert when conditions arise which were not originally anticipated to be significant or which are atypically significant due to context. For example, in existing devices, a normal activation of a signal will, by definition of it having been normal, not generate any sort of alarm. Yet in the specific context of maintenance being performed on an adjacent crossing there is great utility in providing an alarm from this contextual situation. The activation may be mechanically flawless but in this atypical context of at-risk personnel, a new type of alarm condition would have great utility.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is a fundamental objective of the present invention to minimize and overcome the obstacles and challenges of the prior art. In the following description, numerous details are set forth to provide a more thorough explanation of embodiments of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that embodiments of the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. As used herein, unless otherwise indicated, “or” does not require mutual exclusivity.

It is the primary object of the invention to provide a new and improved system and method for the acquisition and display of the status of railroad crossing signaling equipment.

It is a further object of the invention to provide warnings of existing faults, and to provide predictive analysis of potentially impending faults. By providing an indication of an impending fault, a maintenance request may be generated in advance of an actual failure of the signal crossing mechanism, thereby improving safety of the grade level crossing.

These and other aspects of the devices of the invention are described in the figures, description, and claims that follow.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of a signal monitoring system according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic representation of a telemetry unit according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic representation of report generation according to the present invention; and

FIG. 4 is a representative report generated according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring to FIG. 1, a signal monitoring system is shown. The signal monitoring system includes one or more remote telemetry units 101 which collect information from a plurality of input sensors 102 and control outputs 103 at a signal monitoring location. Exemplary input sensors include track circuits to detect the presence or absence of a train, crossing gate status, crossing signal status, ambient temperature, etc. Exemplary control outputs 103 include relays to operate one or more crossing gates, relays to activate warning lights, etc. An arbitrary number of sensor inputs 102 (shown as SI-1, SI-2, . . . SI-n) and control outputs 103 (shown as CO-1 . . . . CO-n) may be provided, as necessitated by the requirements of a particular grade crossing.

Telemetry unit 101 converts data representative of the status of inputs 102 and control outputs 103 into event records including a time stamp, as shown in FIG. 4. Event records are transmitted over a communications link 110 as data packets 121 to a central data collector 104. In a typical embodiment, communications link 110 employs cellular phone signals. In other embodiments, wireless or wired internet, a hardwired phone line, radio, or other signal transmission protocols may be employed to transmit data packets 121 from remote communications module 205 telemetry unit 101 to a collector communications module 122 of data collector 104. Transmission of event records to data collector may be continuous, periodic, or triggered in response to an event such as operation of the signal crossing mechanism in response to passage of a train.

Data collector 104 collects the data packets 121 from one or more telemetry units 101 and makes the data records 105 available to a plurality of processing engines 106. Processing engines 106, which may be in disparate locations, process the event records to aggregate, partition, and collate the records and apply analysis algorithms to generate immediate notifications 107. Notifications 107 may include text messages 112 or emails 110. Processing engines 106 may also generate reports 108 that may include status, maintenance recommendations, statistical analysis, abnormal conditions, etc. for review by cognizant parties.

Referring to FIG. 2, a representative schematic of telemetry unit 101 is shown. Telemetry unit 101 includes a digital processor 201 which contains a local clock circuit 202 and sufficient volatile and non-volatile memory 214 to contain programs and data for operation. Telemetry unit 101 includes sensor inputs 102, shown as isolated inputs 210. Isolated inputs 210 may include both discrete inputs 211 and analog inputs 212. Exemplary discrete inputs 211 include a train approaching indication, a lights activated indication, and a gate down indication. Exemplary analog inputs 212 include battery voltage, current of a track circuit, and temperature readings. Isolated inputs 210 are connected to the processor via the data bus 203 which also connects a plurality of control outputs 103, shown as isolated outputs 220. Isolated outputs 220 may include both discrete outputs 221 and analog outputs 222. Exemplary discrete outputs 221 include commands to start, stop, or lock a piece of equipment, or activate a relay. Exemplary analog outputs 222 include control of a thermostat. An arbitrary number of discrete inputs 211 (shown as DI-1, DI-2, . . . DI-n), analog inputs 212 (shown as AI-1, AI-2, . . . AI-n), . . . CO-n), discrete outputs 221 (shown as DO-1, DO2, . . . DO-n), and analog outputs 222 (shown as AO-1, AO-2, . . . AO-n) may be provided, as necessitated by the requirements of a particular grade crossing.

Telemetry unit 101 also includes a local communication module 204 which may handle any sort of input or output which is not of simple discrete or analog type. These may include connections to Local Area Networks 241, wireless devices 242, universal serial bus, 243, ethernet 244, or the like. Telemetry unit 101 also contains a remote communication module 205 to establish communication link 110 with data collector 104. Remote communication module 205 may provide connections to a cellular network 251, radio network 252, landline 253, or the like. Telemetry unit 101 further includes an isolated power module 206 suitable for its intended use in remote locations which may include mains power 261 and DC battery sources 262.

The central data collector 104 receives event records 121 which are generated by one or more remote telemetry units 101. Each event record represents the time tagged value or set of values recorded by a remote telemetry unit. The event record transmission may be triggered by a change in an input value from a remote telemetry unit, or from a timed or periodic event. The collector records and saves such records to make them available for subsequent dispensation by one or more report processing engines.

In a typical embodiment shown in FIG. 3, processing engines 106 access event records collected by central data collector 104 via the internet or other information networking system, thereby allowing the rapid and immediate retention and transmission of records. The collector data storage scheme need not be complex, and it may be as simple as a randomly accessible list of records. Alternatively, it may comprise a database with commensurate security and search and access features to enhance efficiency and prevent malicious access.

Notifications 107 and reports 108 are generated by one or more report processing engines 106 which have access to the collector data. In one embodiment a report engine may include one or more separate computing devices each of which can selectively receive event records served by the collector. It is not a requirement that report processing engines comprise separate computing devices. A single computing device may host a multitude of report processing engines embodied as software processes, each of which may construct one or more reports or notifications from the collector event records. It some embodiments, the processing engines may be incorporated as a software process integrated within the collector itself. In addition, the output of the collector may be considered a limited type of report and may be read directly as a type of report output if desired. In further embodiments, a plurality of collectors may be employed for redundancy, or to separate sets of event records for security between accessors of such records.

In the preferred embodiment report processing engines may aggregate, sort and collate the base event records by various metrics to provide a wide range of reports. In this context, notifications may be considered a type of time sensitive report and so every consideration of a report applies equally to notifications. In a similar manner, an Alarm 120 may be considered to be a notification which is critical to safety or service and is also time critical.

Report processing engines may aggregate external data such as known weather, for example, to collate against the event record data to provide an aggregate report.

FIG. 4 illustrates a report 431 as may be output from a report processing engine 106 configured to report on the sequence of signal control circuit changes related to a complete train move through a specific location. Report 431 includes of a descriptive title 401 followed by telemetry device identification 403, official location designation 425 and geographic location such as road, city and state 423. The starting time and date 405 to which the report refers as well as time durations from the start 407 for each noted change event. Since the report may change as time progresses the last update time and date 409 is include. Each relevant parameter monitored is displayed in a tabular fashion. Each column 421 is headed by the input type and a label 417. Each row is one of a sequence indicate by the rightmost column 415 and represents a change having occurred to one of the monitored inputs. The value of the relevant inputs 413 is displayed in every row and column. This may be represented by a character code, H for high and L for low for example, or a numeric value when suitable. For ease of interpretation the border 411 between rows within a column wherein a change has occurred are highlighted and the duration of the condition thus changed is placed within that border 419. Regions within borders may have additional highlighting or color coding to enhance rapid visual discrimination.

Report processing engines 106 may be configured to produce the exemplary reports described below.

Recent Failure Alarm: A report processing engine with access to the current event records generated by the collector 104 can be configured to:

• • 1. Filter such records to select for a specific location.
  • 2. Further filter the results to select for a specific pair of time critical control inputs. For example, the time difference from the signal crossing gate arm horizontal indicator until the detected arrival of the train at the automobile road way.
  • 3. Compare this time to the minimum and maximum allowable specified time for the crossing.
  • 4. If the time is less than the specified minimum or greater than the specified maximum the crossing has failed to meet its specification. An alarm notification may be sent.

Failure Prediction Report: A report processing engine with access to the historic event records generated by the collector 104 can be configured to:

• • 1. Filter such records to select for a specific location.
  • 2. Further filter the results to select for a specific pair of time critical control inputs. For example, the time difference from the signal crossing gate arm horizontal indicator until the detected arrival of the train at the automobile road way.
  • 3. Sort the values by calendar time.
  • 4. Average the values collected over some number of signal activations (first 100 for example) or some period of time (first full month or year for example).
  • 5. Calculate the standard deviation.
  • 6. Repeat the calculation over each similar number of activations (each subsequent 100) or similar time (each subsequent month or year).
  • 7. Calculate the subsequent average and standard deviation.
  • 8. If a subsequent average differs by more than the initial standard deviation calculate the number of activations (or time rate if periods of time are used) before the rate of change of the average plus some portion of its current standard deviation (two standard deviations for example) exceed the maximum or fall below the minimum specification.
  • 9. This can be reported as the predicted time (or number of activations) until likely failure, and flagged for inspection and/or maintenance prior to the predicted failure occurrence.

Adjacent Crossing Activation Warning: A report processing engine with access to the current event records generated by the collector 104 can be configured to:

• • 1. Filter records to select a location that are presently undergoing maintenance as indicated by certain signal control inputs in an active state. This indicates the presence of personnel on the site.
  • 2. Filter records to select nearby locations which are topographically nearby or adjacent (connected by rail) for those in an active signal state. This indicates the presence of a train at the nearby or adjacent crossing; a possibly dangerous condition.
  • 3. Transmit an Alarm message to the cell phones of known personnel who may be occupying the crossing being maintained.
  • 4. Transmit a command to the maintained crossing to activate its signal mechanism to warn the personnel of the impending train arrival.
  • 5. Send notification to the cognizant personal responsible for the safety of maintenance workers.

Corroborate Reported Failures: A report processing engine with access to the historic event records generated by the collector 104 can be configured to:

• • 1. Receive search parameters from authorized administrators
  • 2. Filter such records to select for a specific location as may have been reported by an observer claiming to have witnessed a crossing signal failure, such as the gate having not been fully lowered before a train passed.
  • 3. Further filter the results to select for all plausible time ranges claimed by the observer.
  • 4. Further filter the results to select for a specific pair of time critical control inputs. For example, the time difference from the signal crossing gate arm horizontal indicator until the detected arrival of the train at the automobile road way.
  • 5. Compare the observer recollection to the actual measurements and generate a corroboration report.

Unobserved Failure Report: A report processing engine with access to the historic event records generated by the collector 104 can be configured to:

• • 1. Screen all crossings in an area or jurisdiction over a span of time for any crossing detection for which any pair of measured parameters were out of specification. This is similar to the “Recent Failure Alarm” procedure except carried out on historical data.
  • 2. Generate a report containing such every detected out of specification condition as an unobserved (by a person) failure.

Crossing Out of Service Warning: A report processing engine with access to the current event records generated by the collector 104 can be configured to:

• • 1. Filter records to select locations that are presently undergoing maintenance as indicated by certain signal control inputs manually placed in an active state or by administrative dictum. This indicates current maintenance activity and that the crossing is out of service.
  • 2. Filter further the results to determine if the maintenance activity has concluded or if sufficient time has elapsed that it will have been anticipated to have concluded.
  • 3. Filter further for most recent records to verify that all manually activated inputs have been returned to their nominal (automatic) state. If not, it may indicate a crossing which remains deactivated state subsequent to otherwise completed maintenance activity. Maintenance personal may have departed without returning the crossing to a fully functional state.
  • 4. Transmit an Alarm message to the cell phones of known personnel who may have performed recent maintenance without returning the crossing to a functional state.
  • 5. Send notification to the cognizant personal responsible for the safety of the crossing.

The invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof. The foregoing embodiments are therefore to be considered in all respects illustrative rather than limiting on the invention described herein. Scope of the invention is thus indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description and all changes that come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are therefore intended to be embraced therein.

All references cited in this specification are hereby incorporated by reference. The discussion of the references herein is intended merely to summarize the assertions made by the authors and no admission is made that any reference constitutes prior art. Applicants reserve the right to challenge the accuracy and pertinence of the cited references.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring a grade level crossing, comprising: a telemetry unit, the telemetry unit having a processor in communication with one or more inputs and one or more control outputs, wherein the one or more inputs receive signals representative of a status of the grade level crossing, and the one or more control outputs operate one or more safety features of the grade level crossing;a data collector in digital communication with the telemetry unit via a communications channel, wherein the data collector receives and stores data records representative of an operation of the grade level crossing;a report processing engine in digital communication with the data collector, wherein the report processing engine is configured to analyze the data records and generate a report on the operation of the grade level crossing.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the report includes a recent failure alarm.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the report includes a failure prediction report.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the report includes an adjacent crossing activation warning.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the report includes a corroboration of a reported failure.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the report includes an unobserved failure report.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the report includes a crossing out of service warning.

8. A method of monitoring one or more grade level crossings, comprising the steps of: providing a telemetry unit, the telemetry unit having a processor in communication with one or more inputs and one or more control outputs, receiving at the one or more inputs signals representative of a status of the grade level crossing, and the one or more control outputs operating one or more safety features of the grade level crossing;providing a data collector in digital communication with the telemetry unit via a communications channel, receiving and storing at the data collector data records representative of an operation of the grade level crossing;providing a report processing engine in digital communication with the data collector;analyzing at the report processing engine the data records representative of an operation of the grade level crossing;generating a report on the operation of the grade level crossing.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the report includes a recent failure alarm.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the report includes a failure prediction report.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the report includes an adjacent crossing activation warning.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the report includes a corroboration of a reported failure.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the report includes an unobserved failure report.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the report includes a crossing out of service warning.