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US 5,129,605 AGranted
Rail vehicle positioning system
AssigneeRockwell International Corporation
InventorsRoger D. Burns, Susan Elliott-Bryan, David B. Turner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A rail vehicle positioning system having a plurality of inputs used to generate a position report including a GPS receiver, a wheel tachometer, O.S. circuits, transponders, and manual inputs from locomotive engineers.
Claims11
A rail vehicle positioning system of the type used to provide a locomotive engineer with information relating to the position of a locomotive;
- said system comprising in operative combination:
- a GPS global positioning system receiver disposed on said locomotive for providing a GPS signal;
- a wheel tachometer disposed on said locomotive for providing a tachometer signal;
- means for calibrating said wheel tachometer to correct for any error by comparing said GPS signal with said tachometer signal;
- and means for generating a position, speed, direction, and acceleration signal in response to said GPS signal and said tachometer signal.
2 more elements
A rail vehicle positioning system of the type used to generate a position report for a locomotive on an expansive rail network;
- the positioning system comprising in operative combination:
- a wheel tachometer onboard said locomotive for measuring the wheel rotation rate and generating a rotation rate signal;
- an onboard computer for integrating said rotation rate signal to produce a distance traveled signal;
- a GPS global positioning system receiver onboard said locomotive for generating a GPS position signal and providing said GPS position signal to said computer;
- said computer further receiving said GPS position signal and comparing said distance traveled signal with the GPS position signal so that a calibration of said wheel tachometer can be accomplished to correct for any error therein;
- whereby, a distance traveled signal can be calibrated by a GPS receiver to improve the accuracy of said distance traveled signal.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.