Railway monitoring system

摘要

A railway monitoring system for detecting degradations, anomalies, changes, and other states of the railway that may indicate an increased probability of derailment, the need for maintenance, or the impedance of railway operation. The railway monitoring system broadly includes a sensor, a data storage component, a data collection and processing component, and a location positioning component. The sensor and other equipment are mounted in a specially designed or modified rail car and cooperatively collect data representative of railway conditions or states and detect changes in the conditions or states by comparing the collected data to previously collected data points.

主权项

1. A system for monitoring a condition of a railway, the system comprising:
a sensor positioned in or on a rail car for sensing states of features of the railway as the rail car traverses the railway at least a first time and a second time; a data storage component; and a data collection and processing component configured to:
receive from the sensor a first set of signals representative of the states of the features of the railway as the rail car traverses the railway the first time and store the first set of signals as a first set of data points on the data storage component;receive from the sensor a second set of signals representative of the states of the features of the railway as the rail car traverses the railway the second time and store the second set of signals as a second set of data points on the data storage component;retrieve the first and second sets of data points from the data storage component;compare the first set of data points with the second set of data points for identifying any differences between data points in the first set of data points and corresponding data points in the second set of data points; andgenerate at least one signal representative of the identified differences, the differences being representative of a change in the state of one or more features of the railway.