Rail state monitoring apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11001282-B2
Application number	US-201816169200-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 24, 2018
Priority date	Oct 24, 2018
Publication date	May 11, 2021
Grant date	May 11, 2021

Abstract

A rail state monitoring apparatus (1) includes: first and second transmission antennas (101, 102) to transmit first and second electric signals to rails (5, 6), respectively; first reception antenna (201) to receive a surface wave (21) of the first electric signal propagated through rail (5) and guided wave (32) of the second electric signal propagated through loop coil (10); second reception antenna (202) to receive surface wave (22) of the second electric signal propagated through rail (6) and guided wave (31) of the first electric signal propagated through loop coil (10); and a processor. The processor obtains received powers of the respective electric signals received by first and second reception antennas (201, 202), determines a rail state from “good”, “rail broken”, “rail crack”, or “rail surface anomaly” based on the received powers, and outputs the rail state as rail state information.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A rail state monitoring apparatus, comprising:
a transmission antenna, which is disposed on a vehicle, and is configured to transmit at least one of a first electric signal, which is to be transmitted to a first rail of a pair of rails, and a second electric signal, which is to be transmitted to a second rail of the pair of rails;
a reception antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to receive:
at least one of the first electric signal propagated through the first rail and the second electric signal propagated through the second rail; and
at least one of the first electric signal propagated through an annular transmission line formed so as to include the first rail and the second rail and the second electric signal propagated through the annular transmission line; and

a processor, wherein the processor is configured to:
set a first threshold value and a second threshold value smaller than the first threshold value in advance;
calculate received powers of the first electric signal and the second electric signal, which are received by the reception antenna;
classify each of the received powers as one of three levels of “high”, “medium”, and “low” in comparison with the first threshold value and the second threshold value to generate a received power pattern; and
determine each of rail states of the first rail and the second rail as at least any one of “good”, “rail broken”, “rail crack”, or “rail surface anomaly” based on the generated received power pattern, and output a result of the determination as rail state information,

wherein the processor is further configured to
set a third threshold value in advance;
classify each of the received powers of the first electric signal and the second electric signal, which are received by the reception antenna, as one of two levels of “high” and “low” in comparison with the third threshold value to generate a second received power pattern; and
determine whether an anomaly has occurred in the transmission antenna and the reception antenna based on the second received power pattern, and when an anomaly has occurred, output apparatus failure information for notifying that the anomaly has occurred.

2. The rail state monitoring apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to:
store a determination table in which a received power pattern is stored for each of the rail state of “good”, “rail broken”, “rail crack”, and “rail surface anomaly” in a memory in advance; and
search the determination table for a received power pattern that matches the generated received power pattern, to thereby determine each of the rail states of the first rail and the second rail as at least any one of “good”, “rail broken”, “rail crack”, or “rail surface anomaly”.

3. The rail state monitoring apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the transmission antenna includes:
a first transmission antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to transmit the first electric signal to the first rail; and
a second transmission antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to transmit the second electric signal to the second rail,

wherein the reception antenna includes:
a first reception antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to receive the first electric signal propagated through the first rail and the second electric signal propagated through the annular transmission line; and
a second reception antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to receive the second electric signal propagated through the second rail and the first electric signal propagated through the annular transmission line, and

wherein the processor is further configured to:
calculate the received power of the first electric signal, which is received by the first reception antenna, and the received power of the second electric signal, which is received by the first reception antenna, and output the received powers as a first received power and a second received power, respectively;
calculate the received power of the first electric signal, which is received by the second reception antenna, and the received power of the second electric signal, which is received by the second reception antenna, and output the received powers as a third received power and a fourth received power, respectively;
classify each of the first received power, the second received power, the third received power, and the fourth received power as one of the three levels of “high”, “medium, and “low” in comparison with the first threshold value and the second threshold value to generate a received power pattern; and
determine each of the rail states of the first rail and the second rail as at least any one of “good”, “rail broken”, “rail crack”, or “rail surface anomaly” based on the received power pattern, and output the result of the determination as the rail state information,

wherein the processor is further configured to:
set a third threshold value in advance;
classify each of the received powers of the first electric signal and the second electric signal, which are received by the reception antenna, as one of two levels of “high” and “low” in comparison with the third threshold value to generate a second received power pattern; and
determine whether an anomaly has occurred in the transmission antenna and the reception antenna based on the second received power pattern, and when an anomaly has occurred, output apparatus failure information for notifying that the anomaly has occurred.

4. The rail state monitoring apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the transmission antenna includes:
a first transmission antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to transmit the first electric signal to the first rail,

wherein the reception antenna includes:
a first reception antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to receive the first electric signal propagated through the first rail; and
a second reception antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to receive the first electric signal propagated through the annular transmission line, and

wherein the processor is further configured to:
calculate the received power of the first electric signal, which is received by the first reception antenna, and output the received power as a first received power;
calculate the received power of the first electric signal, which is received by the second reception antenna, and output the received power as a second received power;
classify each of the first received power and the second received power as one of the three levels of “high”, “medium, and “low” in comparison with the first threshold value and the second threshold value to generate a received power pattern; and
determine each of the rail states of the first rail and the second rail as at least any one of “good”, “rail broken”, “rail crack”, or “rail surface anomaly” based on the received power pattern, and output the result of the determination as the rail state information.

5. The rail state monitoring apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the transmission antenna includes:
a first transmission antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to transmit the first electric signal to the first rail; and
a second transmission antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to transmit the second electric signal to the second rail,

wherein the reception antenna includes a first reception antenna, which is disposed on the vehicle, and is configured to receive the first electric signal propagated through the first rail and the second electric signal propagated through the annular transmission line, and
wherein the processor is further configured to:
calculate

Assignees

• Mitsubishi Electric Corp
• Mitsubishi Electric Res Laboratories Inc

Inventors

• Tsujita Wataru
• Makino Kenzo
• Takami Atsushi
• Wang Bingnan

Classifications

• B61L23/044 Primary

  Broken rails · CPC title

• B61L1/10

  actuated by electromagnetic radiation; actuated by particle radiation · CPC title

• B61L23/045

  Rail wear · CPC title

• B61L3/12

  using magnetic or electrostatic induction; using radio waves · CPC title

• B61L15/0027

  Radio-based, e.g. using GSM-R · CPC title