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© 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-826-0
Abstract
The contribution deals with the concept and the performance of a new speed
and distance measuring device for rail vehicles. The system consists of two
eddy current sensors and a correlator. The sensors transform irregularities
of the rail track (e.g. rail clamps) into two signals being similar but shifted
by a transit time corresponding to the speed of the vehicle. The correlator
extracts the transit time from the two sensor signals. The measuring system
presented offers good accuracies with wide measurement ranges and good
dynamical properties. Promising experimental results were obtained in the
laboratory as well as during several field-tests.
1 Introduction
Accurate and continuous speed and distance measurement of rail vehicles is
required for example for future train control systems. For this application,
location based only on satellite systems does not meet the high level safety
requirements in rail traffic because of the limited operational availability
[1] — especially in tunnels. Therefore, additional systems are needed to
provide continuous vehicle location by measuring the distance covered even
when the satellite signal drops out [3]. The accuracy of conventional wheel
revolution counters widely used in rail vehicles is not sufficient, especially
because of wheel slip.
Correlation systems offer a good possibility for contactless speed mea-
surement of rail vehicles. Such systems consist of a correlator and a sensor
device. The sensors, which are mounted on a bogie of the rail vehicle,
Computers in Railways VII, C.A. Brebbia J.Allan, R.J. Hill, G. Sciutto & S. Sone (Editors)
© 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-826-0
operate under adverse conditions (e.g. dirt, rain, snow). Thus, eddy cur-
rent sensors are the practical choice because of their insensitivity to these
influences.
In the following, the basic idea of the correlation method will be re-
viewedfirst.Then, the eddy current sensor principle will be discussed with
special attention to its application in rail vehicles. Finally, some experimen-
tal results will be presented.
= lim (1)
TA-+OO
(2)
T r
The exciting coil of the eddy current sensor is fed with the sinusoidal
current i(t) acting as a carrier signal, which is modulated in amplitude
and phase, e.g. if the sensor is moved over a rail clamp. A phase-sensitive
Computers in Railways VII, C.A. Brebbia J.Allan, R.J. Hill, G. Sciutto & S. Sone (Editors)
© 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-826-0
Computers in Railways \ 71 1265
sensor
rail
rfk^-rail clamp
I i
. X
*(*)
4 Experimental results
4.1 Laboratory tests
In addition to the field-tests discussed in section 4.2, several laboratory
tests were carried out for testing the measuring system under well-defined
conditions. In particular, the dynamic response of the correlator was tested
in the laboratory for two reasons: (1) A high precision reference speed is not
available on the rail vehicle, especially during acceleration and deceleration;
(2) high decelerations (which only occur during emergency braking) are
difficult to realize during field-tests.
Computers in Railways VII, C.A. Brebbia J.Allan, R.J. Hill, G. Sciutto & S. Sone (Editors)
© 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-826-0
Fig. 6(a) illustrates the test stand used for dynamic tests of the corre-
lation system. Two eddy current sensors were arranged around a rotating
drum at a distance h — 90mm. The reference speed Vref = w • r was deter-
mined with an incremental revolution counter. Fig. 6(b) shows the speed
v measured with the correlator, and the relative error Sy of speed measure-
ment over the distance x = / u(t) - rdt. Even in case of strong decelerations
of about —2.5 m/s^, the correlator tracks the speed variations very well. The
relative error 6^ is smaller than 1% for speeds higher than 1 m/s.
drum
Sensor 2
600 800
jc/m _
(a) (b)
Figure 6: (a) Laboratory test stand; (b) measured speed and relative error
of the correlation system.
4.2 Field-tests
Several field tests were carried out in cooperation with the German railway
authority Deutsche Bahn AG. Usually, the sensors were mounted on a bogie
of an electric locomotive. The vertical distance h between the sensors and
the rail head was set within a range from 60 mm up to 120 mm. Moreo-
ver, the distance I between the two sensors was varied from 180 mm up
to 500 mm. The measuring system was tested on several main lines with
speeds up to 200 km/h and while shunting in railway stations with speeds
smaller than 40 km/h.
For a vertical sensor distance to the rail head of h = 120 mm, the rail
clamps — which are almost regularly placed on straight tracks — mainly
form the sensor signals. For h = 60 mm, the sensors detected about 5 to
10 irregularities per meter. This means that irregularities of the rail head
were additionally perceived.
For a more detailed signal analysis, it is useful to discuss the cross-
Computers in Railways VII, C.A. Brebbia J.Allan, R.J. Hill, G. Sciutto & S. Sone (Editors)
© 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-826-0
Computers in Railways Vll 1267
-1
correlation coefficient
$12
(var{...} : variance) (5)
of the zero-mean sensor signals. Fig. 7(a) shows a typical correlation coef-
ficient Qi%(vr) measured on a straight track for h = 100 mm. To represent
this function independently of the train speed v, the time delay r is multi-
plied by v. Consequently, the product vr represents the spatial shift of the
two sensor signals. The global maximum of QII(VT] ist located at vT = /,
where / denotes the distance between the two sensors. In this example, the
maximal correlation coefficient k = max {#12} is 0.99. That means that the
two sensor signals are nearly identical. In the ideal case, k should equal one.
Usually, periodic sensor signals were measured on straight tracks because
here the rail clamps are nearly equidistant along the rail. Therefore, as a
side-effect, the mean distance % between two adjacent rail clamps can be
derived from the periodic part of Qiz(vr) as illustrated in Fig. 7(a).
When the sensors passed a rail switch, non-periodic cross-correlation
coefficients £12 (vr} were measured as shown in Fig. 7(b). The periodic part
of Q\2(vr} disappears because the rail clamps are not equally spaced here,
and steel components of the rail switch (e.g. switch blades) are detected.
This enables the additional use of the eddy current sensors to detect rail
switches [14].
Generally, sensor signals with a high signal-to-noise ratio were obtai-
ned during thefield-tests.Usually, the measured maximal correlation coef-
ficients & took values higher than 0.95; see Fig. 8. This result clearly shows
that disturbances have no significant influence on the sensor signals.
The correlator used for thefieldtests only detects a local maximum of
the correlation function of the sensor signals. Once being in the region of
Computers in Railways VII, C.A. Brebbia J.Allan, R.J. Hill, G. Sciutto & S. Sone (Editors)
© 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-826-0
the global maximum, which provides the speed information, the correlator
tracks it reliably even if the correlation function is fully periodic. To achieve
this, an adequate system design is neccessary as thoroughly discussed in [5].
The reference signal for speed measurement was generated by wheel
revolution counting. Thus, the accuracy of the reference speed was limited
as already discussed. Therefore, the precision of the correlation system was
assessed by the results of distance measurement, which were obtained in
several test sections from exactly known lengths. The beginning and the
end of these track sections were detected with infrared light barriers. Fig.
9 shows the relative errors <?% of distance measurement, which were taken
with the calibrated correlation system on a main line. Here, the speed of
the test train was about 110 km/h. The tests No. 1 to 7 were carried out
on a track section with a length of 733.7 m. The results of the tests No. 8
to 12 were obtained on a track section with a length of 944 m. As a main
result, the magnitude of the relative error J% was smaller than 0.2%.
u.z
0.1 -
0 i# '•%
EV ^
-0.1 - ii
1
_n i
test No.
Figure 9: Relative errors 6x of distance measuruement. Tests No. 1 to 7:
^944 m.
^m; Tests No. 8 to 12: section length
section length 733.7
Computers in Railways VII, C.A. Brebbia J.Allan, R.J. Hill, G. Sciutto & S. Sone (Editors)
© 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-826-0
Computers in Railways 111 1?69
5 Conclusions
The eddy current sensors presented in this paper offer a good possibility
for accurate, slip-free speed and distance measurement of rail vehicles by
correlation techniques. Furthermore, the additional use of these sensors to
detect rail switches is an interesting novel approach, which is dicussed in
more detail in [14]. The correlation system presented was successfully tested
in the laboratory as well as in several field-tests.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Adtranz Signal AB (Stockholm, Sweden)
for supporting this work, and Mr. Hakan Lind and Mr. Askell Finnestad
for helpful discussions. They also would like to thank Dr. Bernhard Sar-
nes and Mr. Stefan Eberlein, Deutsche Bahn AG, for enabling the field-tests.
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Computers in Railways VII, C.A. Brebbia J.Allan, R.J. Hill, G. Sciutto & S. Sone (Editors)
© 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-826-0
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