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US 8,190,377 B2Granted
Enhanced rail inspection
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsChih-Chieh Fu, Ming Wang, Chih-An Wei, Kevin Hsu
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Abstract
Rail inspection is discussed that employs a monitor vehicle running on one or more tracks of a rail system that performs physical rail inspection in combination with monitoring and analysis of other system parameters that accompany the physical rail.
Claims22
A method for inspecting a rail system comprising:
- operating a monitor vehicle over one or more rails of said rail system;
- directing non-destructive, electromagnetic energy from a first sensor of said monitor vehicle at said one or more rails;
- determining a physical rail integrity based on analysis of a reflection of said directed non-destructive energy from a solitary one of said one or more rails, wherein the reflection has bounced off of the surface of the one or more rails and returned to the monitor vehicle without entering the one or more rails;
- measuring a temperature of said one or more rails by a second sensor on said monitor vehicle;
- transmitting said determined physical rail integrity and said temperature to a data collection point;
- directing non-destructive energy from a third sensor of said monitor vehicle at a power line of said rail system;
- determining a physical power line integrity based on analysis of said directed non-destructive energy;
- and
- transmitting said determined physical power line integrity along with said determined physical integrity and said temperature.
6 more elements
A rail monitor vehicle for a rail system, said rail monitor vehicle comprising:
- a drive mechanism for moving said rail monitor vehicle over one of one or more rails of said rail system;
- a plurality of sensors, said plurality of sensors including at least:
- a temperature sensor;
- and
- a rail deformation sensor for sensing a deformation within a single one of the one or more rails without reference to another one of the one or more rails, the rail deformation sensor sensing a reflection of at least one form of light off of the single one of the one or more rails;
- a processor for processing raw data measured by said plurality of sensors;
- a communication interface configured to communicate said processed raw data to a data collection point;
- and
- a vacuum configured to vacuum particles from said one of said one or more rails.
6 more elements
A system for inspecting a rail system comprising:
- a rail monitor vehicle operable to traverse one or more rails of said rail system, said rail monitor comprising:
- locomotive means;
- a plurality of sensors to measure a plurality of parameters of only a single one of the one or more rails of said rail system, said plurality of parameters including at least:
- communication line strength;
- rail deformation;
- and
- rail temperature;
- and
- a processor for processing said measured plurality of parameters;
- a plurality of alarm conditions corresponding to said plurality of parameters, wherein said rail monitor vehicle transmits an electronic wireless alarm for each of said measured plurality of parameters that falls within said plurality of alarm conditions;
- and
- a data collection point, wherein said rail monitor vehicle communicates said measured plurality of parameters and said processed measured plurality of parameters to said data collection point, wherein said rail monitor vehicle wirelessly transmits the electronic wireless alarm to said data collection point.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.