Monitoring system for monitoring a condition of an electric rail system and/or of a current collector of the rail system

Abstract

An electric rail system includes a current collector mounted for movement along at least one rail of the electric rail system and a monitoring system for detecting a condition indicative of a problem with the rail system or the current collector. The monitoring system includes a detector having one or more of: a camera configured to record images of a portion of the rail system in front of or behind the current collector, at least one vibration sensor on at least one slip contact of the current collector, an optical spark sensor configured to detect sparks in a contact region between the slip contact and the at least one rail, and at least one distance sensor configured to detect a distance between the at least one distance sensor and the at least one rail.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.