Many railroad crossings have humped geometrical profiles that pose great risk to motor vehicles such as cars, buses, and trucks crossing the railroad tracks. There is a need to be able to safely detect these humped profiles on the railroad crossings. As a result, there is a need to develop a drone-based grade crossing inspection system to improve the efficiency of grade crossing inspections for humped conditions and other safety-related conditions such as visual sight lines, location of gates, lights, signage, culverts, rail deformations, grade crossings, drainage pipes, and other conditions. The drone that is used must be able to navigate both in the ground as well as in the air since it is necessary to be able to drive to detect the humped conditions and the visual sight lines while it is necessary to be able to fly in the air to detect the lights, signs, and gates. In the present invention, a transformable robot has been developed that can both drive and fly in the air to detect the different safety conditions and is referred to as a hybrid UAV/UGV. The invention relates to a transformable robot capable of flying and driving for survey of humps, visual sight lines, gates, lights, grades, rail deformations, culverts, drainage pipes, or signs at railroad crossings that comprise a ground locomotion system, an air locomotion system, controls, and a sensor that is necessary to do the survey of the different safety related conditions.
Drone Based Inspection System At Railroad Crossings
2021-02-11
Patent
Electronic Resource
English
Engineering Index Backfile | 1917
Engineering Index Backfile | 1892
|Engineering Index Backfile | 1956
|Engineering Index Backfile | 1908
|