An apparatus 2 for monitoring railway track 4 has a wireless sensor node 6 fitted to an axle assembly 8 of a railway vehicle 10, and a processor (fig.2,18). The Sensor node contains a vibration energy harvester (fig.2,12), a sensor (fig.2,14), and a wireless transmitter (fig.2,16). When the vehicle is in motion the energy harvester converts vibration energy to power the transmitter; and the sensor measures vibration in the axle assembly over a period of time to produce a vibration-time signal which varies with a periodicity corresponding to the spacing of sleepers along the railway track; the signal is transmitted, and processed, preferably continuously in real-time, to determine a track condition parameter, such as the track stiffness. The track condition parameter may be determined from analysis of portions of the vibration-time signal corresponding to track between adjacent sleepers. Vibration-time signals from previous monitoring operations may be integrated or combined into a reference vibration-time signal, against which the current axle vibration-time signal may be compared.
Monitoring railway track
2019-05-01
Patent
Electronic Resource
English
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