Encoded information means located on an infrastructure to be decoded by sensors located on mobiles

A system comprising:

• an encoded information means located along a trajectory on an infrastructure to be decoded by sensors located on mobile vehicles that travel along the trajectory, wherein
• said encoded information means encodes the position the encoded information means occupies in the infrastructure;
• at least one sensor, to read and decode the encoded information means into information on a position of a mobile vehicle in the infrastructure, wherein
• said encoded information means, located along the trajectory of the mobile vehicles, comprising different objects presenting dielectric change boundaries or dielectric/metal boundaries that present different wave propagation times with respect to the at least one sensor on a first mobile vehicle of the mobile vehicles,
• said at least one sensor on the first mobile vehicle is configured to interrogate said dielectric change boundaries or dielectric/metal boundaries via pressure or radar waves and to measure propagation times the pressure or radar waves take to return via reflections to the at least one sensor, and to determine the distances at which the reflections occur and to extract encoded information of said different objects that incorporate the encoded information of said encoded information means,
• said infrastructure comprises a railway infrastructure including a plurality of railway sleepers, the encoded information means are made up by the railway sleepers themselves, the railway sleepers having a first characteristic, wherein
• the first characteristic of the railway sleepers includes a uniform surface with regard to a ballast, or a different height with respect to a track set on a concrete slab, and wherein
• the railway sleepers are found at a specific distance from a known point on a railway vehicle, the railway vehicle comprising a locomotive or a wagon or a coach, wherein
• the plurality of sleepers are encoded with a series of bits via a plurality of studs, the studs covered with a material permeable to the eaves;
• wherein
• at each stud of the plurality of studs, a respective thickness of the permeable material encodes a logical level of a bit representing or corresponding to the encoded information on the position the encoded information means occupies in the infrastructure, the information on the position being divided into groups of 4 bits according a coding scheme, the coding scheme comprising:
• a 4-bit group encoded at each sleeper, wherein the logical level of zero of a bit and ones of bits are representable via first and second levels of thickness of the permeable material;
• when the 4-bit group includes 2 consecutive bits of a same logical level of a but, the second consecutive bit is representable via a third level of thickness of the permeable material;
• and
• a fourth level of thickness of the permeable material, which is a fifth bit that indicates a reading direction for the 4-bit group to the at least one sensor, wherein
• said coding scheme uses 4 bits of information to indicate 16 different sleepers, each encoding its respective 4-bit group and its respective fifth bit according to the coding scheme.