This paper presents the results of development of the inertial system for railway track diagnostics (InerTrack). The key element of this system is a set of inertial measurement units (IMU), based on micromechanical gyros and accelerometers, which are mounted directly onto the truck axle boxes (end bells) of the wheel pairs. The study of the instrumental error of micromechanical sensors was carried out on a testing bench designed at the Laser Measurement and Navigation Systems department of St.-Petersburg State Electrotechnical University. In addition to the IMUs, the InerTrack apparatus contains a satellite navigation system (SNS), an odometer and four sensors of linear displacement (SLD). It also includes a strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS), which is mounted either on the bogie or on the car body, whose movement relative to the axle boxes is controlled by SLDs. This module is used for creating the basic coordinate reference system. According to the required accuracy, three-axis systems, based on laser gyros or fibre-optical gyros, or specialized analytical gyroverticals with reduced number of sensitive elements, can be used as SINS. Modular implementation allows the system to be installed on wheel trucks of any rail vehicles (car/locomotive, manual measuring trucks, road-rail vehicles) and to be used both independently and as a part of track measuring systems. The use of a sole odometer to localize the found rail flaws does not provide satisfactory results because of its errors. Integration of the odometer, SINS and SNS receiver data offers highly accurate referencing of diagnostic results to the traversed track coordinate. Odometer readings are updated using the navigation system data. The InerTrack provides measuring of the track geometry and accurate localization of the measurement point using the geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude) and orientation parameters (roll, pitch and course angle). Therefore, results from multiple runs can be used to form a GIS database. The system can function in unattended mode (so-called unmanned operation) and perform express analysis of the track state in real time. Such configuration can be installed on plain, regularly running locomotives. The system accumulates and compares the measurement results for different runs to predict the progress of track defects.
Inertial system for railway track diagnostics
2012
20 Seiten, 20 Bilder, 4 Tabellen, 23 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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