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AssigneeUnion Switch & Signal Inc.
InventorsRobert A. Peterson, Theo C. Giras, Larry C. Mackey, Daniel R. Disk, Robert G. Brown, Barry W. Johnson, Joseph A. Profeta
Estimating the term…
A railway traffic control system in which accurate vehicle information is effectively available in real-time to facilitate control of traffic flow. Unlike prior art methods of precisely monitoring train location, the current invention is dependant only on equipment on-board the vehicle and position updates provided by external benchmarks located along the track route. The system's dynamic motion capabilities can also be used to sense and store track rail signatures, as a function of rail distance, which can be routinely analyzed to assist in determining rail and road-bed conditions for preventative maintenance purposes. In presently preferred embodiments, the on-board vehicle information detection equipment comprises an inertial measurement unit providing dynamic vehicle motion information to a position processor. Depending on the amount and quality of apriori knowledge of the vehicle route, the inertial measurement unit may have as many as three gyroscopes and three accelerometers or as little as a single accelerometer. To minimize error between benchmarks, the processor preferably includes a recursire estimation filter to combine the apriori route information with movement attributes derived from the inertial measurement unit.
A railway traffic control system for facilitating traffic flow of a plurality of railway vehicles travelling a predetermined track route, said system comprising:
A vehicle traffic control system for facilitating traffic flow of a plurality of land vehicles travelling a predetermined route, said system comprising:
A vehicle traffic control system for facilitating traffic flow of a plurality of land vehicles travelling a predetermined route, said system comprising:
A method of determining the position of a land vehicle travelling over a predetermined route, said method comprising the steps of:
A method of determining the position of a land vehicle travelling over a predetermined route, said method comprising the steps of:
A method of determining the diagnostic condition of a predetermined route traveled by a land-based vehicle, said method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.