LOCATING AND DETECTING RAILWAY TRACK IRREGULARITIES BASED ON VIBRATION RESPONSES OF PASSENGERS’ VEHICLE

Abstract

  This paper presents an improvement of the location tracking of the railway track monitoring system which consists of an MEMS accelerometer, an A/D converter, a GPS receiver, and an ultra small PC. The system has been developed so that railway tracks can be monitored more frequently by the use of a passengers’ vehicle than the measurements are performed by vehicles equipped with various sensors. The one of the concerns in order to make the monitoring system be settled easily and instantly in passengers’ vehicle is that an accuracy of location tracking. The proposed method is achieved by a combination of GPS locating and the uses of an existing digital map, acceleration responses being measured simultaneously. The results of comparisons between vertical acceleration responses and displacements showed a good agreement after the improved location tracking method was applied. The monitoring system has also been proved that track repairing activities can be detected by performing periodical monitoring.