Method of determining railyard status using locomotive location
AssigneeGE Harris Railway Electronics, LLC
InventorJohn R. Doner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system for determining the status of a railyard includes a locomotive itinerary, a computer configured with a comparator algorithm used to compare a locomotive location to the locomotive itinerary, and at least one manager console configured to communicate with the computer. Railcar information is input to the manager console and communicated to the computer, which generates a locomotive task list from the railcar information. The computer then generates a locomotive itinerary, tracks the location of the locomotive and uses the comparator algorithm to determine the schedule status of the railcar.
Claims24
A method for monitoring a status of railcars and locomotives in a railyard using a system that tracks the location of a plurality of railcars each constituting a dependent object based on known locations of locomotives each constituting an independent object, the system including a comparator algorithm and a computer programmed with the comparator algorithm, said method comprising the steps of:
- generating an independent object itinerary based on the requirements on the scheduled activities of the dependent objects;
- moving the dependent objects with the independent objects in accordance with the independent object itinerary;
- tracking the locations of the independent objects;
- comparing the tracked independent object locations with the independent object itinerary;
- and
- determining the locations and status of the dependent objects based on the locations of the independent objects.
A system for monitoring a status of railcars and locomotives in a railyard to determine the location of a plurality of railcars each constituting a dependent object based on determined locations of locomotives each constituting an independent object, the dependent objects being selectively associated with and moved by the independent objects, said system comprising:
- an independent object itinerary established based on the requirements on the scheduled activities of the associated dependent object;
- a list associating the dependent objects to the independent objects for predetermined segments of the independent object itinerary;
- an independent object location tracking system for determining the locations of the independent objects;
- a comparator algorithm for comparing the tracked independent object locations to the independent object itinerary and determining the location and status of the associated dependent objects;
- a computer configured to use said comparator algorithm;
- and
- at least one manager console configured to communicate with said computer to display the status of the locomotives and railcars in the railyard.
A system for monitoring the status of scheduled activities for a plurality of railcars each constituting a dependent object based on determined locations of locomotives each constituting an independent object, the dependent objects being selectively associated with and moved by the independent objects, said system comprising:
- a dependent object activity schedule;
- a comparator algorithm for comparing the independent object locations and the dependent activity schedule to determine the location of the dependent objects;
- and
- a computer configured to use said comparator algorithm.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.