Locomotives are routinely assigned to a particular track, usually in the form of a track number, typically for purposes of movement planning, such as scheduling a route. Additionally, several train control systems enforce control signals for controlling the locomotive at distinct areas along particular tracks. Thus, if a train control system is not aware of the locomotive's properly assigned track number, and whether this number coincides with the track that the locomotive is currently on, the train control system has little certainty it is enforcing the correct control signals for that locomotive.
Some methods are currently available to assist in identifying a locomotive's current track number. However, these methods have significant shortcomings, particularly in multiple-track regions, where locomotives typically initiate motion and require identification of their track number. For example, wayside equipment such as axle counters and track circuits require significant maintenance which is undesirable in several areas, including multiple-track regions. Additionally, low cost GPS technology has been used in conjunction with track switch direction to support identification of a locomotive track number. However, such technology only provides meaningful identification of the locomotive track number in single track areas or requires the train to move before being able to determine the correct track assignment.
Thus, many current train control systems are not equipped to identify the locomotive track number in a multiple track area, and thus the locomotive operator must manually determine the track number in the multiple track area by radio, visually, or by pure speculation. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a system capable of identifying the locomotive track number in a multiple track area, thereby permitting accurate enforcement of signals for train control systems from the time that the locomotive moves from the multiple track area and outwardly along its route.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a system is provided for identifying the track assignment of a locomotive traveling along a track. The system includes at least one onboard receiver on the locomotive for wirelessly communicating with a plurality of satellites to provide a respective initial location of at least one onboard antenna on the locomotive. Additionally, the system includes at least one wayside receiver wirelessly coupled to the at least one onboard receiver. The at least one wayside receiver is positioned adjacent to the track to wirelessly communicate with the plurality of satellites to provide a respective corrected location of the respective initial location of the at least one onboard antenna to the at least one onboard receiver.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a method is provided for identifying the track assignment of a locomotive traveling along a track. The method includes wirelessly communicating at least one onboard receiver on the locomotive with a plurality of satellites, followed by determining a respective initial location of at least one onboard antenna on the locomotive. The method further includes wirelessly coupling at least one wayside receiver to the at least one onboard receiver, where the at least one wayside receiver is positioned adjacent to the track. The method further includes wirelessly communicating the at least one wayside receiver with the plurality of satellites to provide a respective corrected location of the respective initial location of the at least one onboard antenna to the at least one onboard receiver.
In another embodiment of the present invention, computer readable media is provided for identifying the track assignment of a locomotive traveling along a track. At least one onboard receiver on the locomotive is configured to wirelessly communicate with a plurality of satellites such that a respective initial location of at least one onboard antenna on the locomotive is determined. Additionally, at least one wayside receiver positioned adjacent to the track is wirelessly coupled to the at least one onboard receiver. The at least one wayside receiver is configured to wirelessly communicate with the plurality of satellites to provide a respective corrected location of the respective initial location of the at least one onboard antenna to the at least one onboard receiver. The computer readable media includes a computer program code for determining the respective corrected location of the respective initial location of the at least one onboard antenna.
A more particular description of the invention briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof that are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the embodiments of the invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:
As illustrated in the exemplary embodiment of
The onboard receivers 16,18 wirelessly communicate with four GPS satellites 20,22,24,26 to provide a respective initial location of a respective onboard antenna 28,30. As is appreciated by one of skill in the art, the onboard receivers 16,18 determine the initial location of each respective onboard antenna 28,30, such a GPS rover antenna, for example, by determining the pseudorange from the onboard antennas 28,30 to each respective GPS satellite 20,22,24,26, and utilize these values to approximate the latitude, longitude, height and time for each onboard antenna 28,30. In an exemplary embodiment of the system 10, the onboard receiver, and wayside receiver (discussed below) either both exclusively utilize an L1 GPS satellite frequency or respectively utilize the L1 and L2 GPS satellite frequencies to determine the onboard antenna position, so to reduce or eliminate error sources attributed to ionospheric effects, ephemeris errors, GPS satellite clock errors, and tropospheric effects, for example. However, the system is not limited to the onboard receiver and wayside receiver (discussed below) utilizing the L1 and L2 GPS satellite frequencies and may utilize any future available satellite GPS frequencies, or other GPS augmentation systems such as WAAS, as appreciated by one of skill in the art. Although the pair of onboard receivers 16,18 and their respective corresponding onboard antennas 28,30 are positioned as shown in
Additionally, as illustrated in
In an additional exemplary embodiment of the system 10, in place of the wayside receivers 32,34, the pseudorange corrections for each GPS satellite 20,22,24,26 to the onboard antennas 28,30 may be provided by one of a number of GPS satellite subscription services, as appreciated by one of skill in the art.
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
In an exemplary embodiment of the system, upon mapping the corrected positions of each onboard antenna onto the track, the processors may use this to identify the locomotive track number by one of a number of ways. The processor(s) 36,38 may include a memory 37,39 in which the track identification numbers are stored for the range of latitude/longitude/height values, and the processor(s) 36,38 may determine the track identification number by looking up the average onboard antenna 28,30 latitude/longitude/height in the processor(s) memory 37,39, for example. In addition, the processor(s) 36,38 could send a track position signal to a central control station and receive a track identification signal confirming the correct identification of the track number.
Other devices or technology may be utilized to determine the location of the locomotive 12, and thus identify the track assignment of the locomotive 12, and are within the scope of the embodiments of the invention, including various wayside devices, such as axle counters and track circuits, cab signals which provide a track identification to the locomotive, balise or tag reader devices that provide track identification to the train, train driver input via a user interface in the locomotive, track number designation by the dispatcher using a scheme that requires the locomotive to occupy blocks and report its location to the dispatcher, radar ranging technology, laser ranging technology, other global positioning systems such as GloNass, Galileo, and associated GPS satellite based augmentations (WAAS, EGNOS, MSAS and other future augmentation systems).
Based on the foregoing specification, the above-discussed embodiments of the invention may be implemented using computer programming or engineering techniques including computer software, firmware, hardware or any combination or subset thereof, wherein a technical effect is to identify the track assignment of a locomotive traveling along a track. Any such resulting program, having computer-readable code means, may be embodied or provided within one or more computer-readable media, thereby making a computer program product, i.e., an article of manufacture, according to the discussed embodiments of the invention. The computer readable media may be, for instance, a fixed (hard) drive, diskette, optical disk, magnetic tape, semiconductor memory such as read-only memory (ROM), etc., or any emitting/receiving medium such as the Internet or other communication network or link. The article of manufacture containing the computer code may be made and/or used by executing the code directly from one medium, by copying the code from one medium to another medium, or by transmitting the code over a network.
One skilled in the art of computer science will easily be able to combine the software created as described with appropriate general purpose or special purpose computer hardware, such as a microprocessor, to create a computer system or computer sub-system of the method embodiment of the invention. An apparatus for making, using or selling embodiments of the invention may be one or more processing systems including, but not limited to, a central processing unit (CPU), memory, storage devices, communication links and devices, servers, I/O devices, or any sub-components of one or more processing systems, including software, firmware, hardware or any combination or subset thereof, which embody those discussed embodiments the invention.
This written description uses examples to disclose embodiments of the invention, including the best mode, and also to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the embodiments of the invention. The patentable scope of the embodiments of the invention is defined by the claims, and may include other examples that occur to those skilled in the art. Such other examples are intended to be within the scope of the claims if they have structural elements that do not differ from the literal language of the claims, or if they include equivalent structural elements with insubstantial differences from the literal languages of the claims.
This application is based on and claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/895,610 filed Mar. 19, 2007.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60895610 | Mar 2007 | US |