Railway weed control vehicle

A method of controlling weeds with a railway weed control vehicle, the method comprising:

• a) activating at least one weed control unit to control weeds along and around a railway track, wherein the railway track comprises rails and sleepers, and wherein the at least one electrode based weed control unit is mounted to at least one first position of the vehicle;
• b) acquiring sensor data by at least one sensor, the sensor data relating to at least one location along and around the railway track, wherein the at least one sensor is mounted to at least one second position of the vehicle, and wherein with respect to a forward movement direction of the vehicle the at least one second position is in front of the at least one first position;
• c) providing the sensor data to a processing unit;
• d) analyzing by the processing unit the sensor data to determine locations of rail infrastructure components in addition to the rails and sleepers;
• and
• e) modifying by the processing unit activation of one or more electrode based weed control units of the at least one electrode based weed control unit comprising utilization of at least one location of the determined locations of the rail infrastructure components,
• wherein modification of activation of the one or more electrode based weed control units comprises a movement of the one or more electrode based weed control units away from the at least one location of the determined locations;
• and
• wherein the movement comprises a horizontal movement at the underside of the vehicle.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising executable instructions for controlling a vehicle, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the following steps:

• activating at least one weed control unit to control weeds along and around a railway track, wherein the railway track comprises rails and sleepers, and wherein the at least one electrode based weed control unit is mounted to at least one first position of the vehicle;
• acquiring sensor data by at least one sensor, the sensor data relating to at least one location along and around the railway track, wherein the at least one sensor is mounted to at least one second position of the vehicle, and wherein with respect to a forward movement direction of the vehicle the at least one second position is in front of the at least one first position;
• providing the sensor data to a processing unit;
• analyzing by the processing unit the sensor data to determine locations of rail infrastructure components in addition to the rails and sleepers;
• and
• modifying by the processing unit activation of one or more electrode based weed control units of the at least one electrode based weed control unit comprising utilization of at least one location of the determined locations of the rail infrastructure components
• wherein modification of activation of the one or more electrode based weed control units comprises a movement of the one or more electrode based weed control units away from the at least one location of the determined locations;
• and
• wherein the movement comprises a horizontal movement at the underside of the vehicle.