V-aware end of train device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9994242-B2
Application number	US-201514873578-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 2, 2015
Priority date	Oct 3, 2014
Publication date	Jun 12, 2018
Grant date	Jun 12, 2018

Abstract

The present disclosure teaches inter-vehicle communications for avoiding rear collision of rail vehicles on a railroad. For example, a collision avoidance system may comprise an end-of-train device and a V-aware unit located on different vehicles. The two devices may be configured to wirelessly communicate with each other, and then detect each other's presence by estimating a distance between them. Warnings may be issued to respective operators against a collision hazard when the distance drops to or below a pre-determined threshold.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An end-of-train device positioned at about a rear end of a train, the end-of-train device comprising:
at least one transceiver configured to:
wirelessly communicate with a rail vehicle that is moving towards the rear end of the train, and
receive signals from a wayside device; and

a processor configured to:
detect, based on the communication with the rail vehicle, a presence of the rail vehicle to prevent a potential collision between the train and the rail vehicle, and
determine, based on the received signals, a location of the rear end of the train relative to the wayside device.

2. The end-of-train device of claim 1 , wherein the train comprises a locomotive and at least one car coupled to the locomotive, wherein the end-of-train device is configured to be installed on a last car, and wherein the end-of-train device is further configured to notify a train operator of the presence of the rail vehicle by sending a data signal to the locomotive.

3. The end-of-train device of claim 1 , wherein the rail vehicle is equipped with a vehicle (V)-aware unit located thereon, and wherein the V-aware unit communicates with the at least one transceiver over a radio link for determining at least a distance range between the train and the rail vehicle.

4. The end-of-train device of claim 3 , wherein the communication between the V-aware unit and the at least one transceiver over the radio link comprises using radio frequencies near about 400 MHz.

5. The end-of-train device of claim 3 , wherein the communication with the V-aware unit comprises sending chirp signals in a radio frequency band near about 2.4 GHz.

6. The end-of-train device of claim 1 , further comprising a global positioning system (GPS) module configured to communicate with a control center over a communications link.

7. The end-of-train device of claim 1 , further comprising a cellular module configured to communicate with an operations control center over a cellular communications link.

8. The end-of-train device of claim 1 , wherein the wayside device comprises a smart tag deployed in a switching yard, and wherein the end-of-train device is further configured to send the location of the rear end of the train relative to the smart tag to a crew in a locomotive of the train to prevent hitting a yard barrier.

Assignees

• Harsco Technologies LLC

Inventors

• Bartek Peter Michael

Classifications

• B61L23/34

  for indicating the distance between vehicles or trains by the transmission of signals therebetween · CPC title

• H04W4/023

  using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds · CPC title

• H04W4/40

  for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P] · CPC title

• H04W4/42

  for mass transport vehicles, e.g. buses, trains or aircraft · CPC title

• B61L15/0027

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