Back-up and redundancy of modules in locomotive distributed control systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8935020-B2
Application number	US-201213691103-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 30, 2012
Priority date	Nov 30, 2012
Publication date	Jan 13, 2015
Grant date	Jan 13, 2015

Abstract

The present disclosure is directed to a distributed control system for a locomotive. The distributed system may include a network, a plurality of electronic modules and a plurality of control elements distributed within the locomotive. Each of the electronic modules is communicatively coupled to the network in a standardized scalable architecture. Each of the electronic modules may be programmatically reconfigurable to implement distributed control of the locomotive. A first electronic module and a second electronic module of the plurality of electronic modules may be communicatively connected to one of the plurality of control elements via separate communication paths. The first electronic module may be configured to control the control element, and the second electronic module may be configured to control the control element when the first electronic module enters into a failure condition.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A consist, comprising:
a plurality of locomotives, each locomotive comprising:
a network disposed within the locomotive;
a plurality of electronic modules spatially distributed within the locomotive, each of the electronic modules communicatively coupled to the network in a standardized scalable architecture and being programmatically reconfigurable to implement distributed control of the locomotive; and
a plurality of control elements distributed withi…

Assignees

• Electro Motive Diesel Inc

Inventors

• Wiemeyer James Fredrick
• Deitz Michael Patrick
• Brown Dale Alexander
• Przybylski Lawrence Stanley
• Rudolph Wayne Allen

Classifications

• B61C17/12 Primary

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic