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

Eddy current sensor system for

non-contact speed and distance
measurement of rail vehicles

T. Engelberg & F. Mesch

Institut fur Mefl- und Regelungstechnik,
University of Karlsruhe, Germany.

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

1262 Computers in Railways VII

Figure 1: Speed and distance measurement of rail vehicles by correlation

techniques. P: signal preprocessing unit.

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.

2 Basic idea of transit time correlation

Fig. 1 illustrates the basic principle of the measuring system. Two identical
sensors are arranged at a distance / on a bogie of the rail vehicle. The sensors
capture irregularities of the rail track. Ideally, the sensor signals s\(t) and
52 (t) are identical but shifted by a transit time T. The correlator derives
this transit time from the position of the maximum of the cross-correlation
function

= lim (1)
TA-+OO

see Fig. 2. Then, the train speed is determined by

(2)

Furthermore, the distance x covered by the rail vehicle can be obtained by

integrating the measured speed.
Moreover, the correlator derives the direction of motion from the two
sensor signals [5]. Additionally, further intelligent functions, like status
signal monitoring, are implemented. For more details concerning the corre-
lator, see references [5, 13, 16].
Correlation techniques are known for non-contact speed measurement
over ground since decades; see e.g. [12]. However, this method has not
been used for rail vehicles in normal operation until now — except for some
 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 177 1263

T r

Figure 2: Cross-correlation function of sensor signals.

field-tests. In [9], it was stated that correlation techniques are promising

but substantial further developments of their sensors appear neccessary.
Indeed, especially for the train-based application of the speed measurement
by correlation techniques, the choice of an adequate physical sensor principle
becomes the most important step during the development. On one hand,
the sensors have the task to detect irregularities of the rail track. But on the
other hand, they should be insensitive to any environmental influences (e.g.
dirt, rain, snow) as well as to dynamic variations of their position above
the rail, which occur e.g. because of the spring suspension of the vehicle
[4]. Clearly, optical sensors [7, 15] are not robust enough for the all-weather
operation on rail vehicles. Microwave speckle sensors [10] may fail if the
transmitted microwave radiation is incident on very smooth surfaces (e.g.
ice coatings). In contrast, the eddy current sensor principle is predestinated
for rail applications because of its insensitivity to dirt and severe weather
conditions [8].
In the following, the eddy current sensor device designed for the rail
application will be discussed in more detail.

3 Eddy current sensor device

Since decades, the eddy current method is well-known for the nondestructive
testing of electrically conductive objects [6, 11]. For example, eddy current
testing is applied to the examination of rails; see e.g. [2]. In principle, an
eddy current sensor is sensitive to local fluctuations of the conductivity and
the magnetic permeability. Therefore, such sensors can be used to detect
inhomogeneities along the rail track, e.g. rail clamps as well as irregularities
of the rail.
For the application to train-based speed measurement, differential ed-
dy current sensors are preferable. Fig. 3 shows such a differential sensor
consisting of an exciting coil E and two pickup coils PI and P2 arranged
one behind the other in the direction of motion. The exciting coil — which
is driven by a sinusoidal primary current i(t) — generates an alternating
primary magneticfield.Therefore, eddy currents are induced within electri-
cally conductive objects located in the proximity of the sensor. These eddy
 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

1264 Computers in Railways Vll

Figure 3: Differential eddy current sensor.

currents cause a secondary magneticfield,which has an opposite direction

to the primary field in conformity with Lenz's law. The resulting magne-
tic field is captured with the two pickup coils connected in difference. The
differential voltage
(3)
is independent of all influences affecting both pickup coils equally. Thus,
differential sensors only detect irregularities along the rail. In contrast,
vertical sensor movements as well as side movements almost do not influence
u(i), if the two pickup coils are well balanced.
Generally, the eddy currents are phase shifted with respect to the pri-
mary current. This effect can be represented by expressing thefieldquanti-
ties and the differential voltage by complex quantities. The complex voltage
u can be obtained by a phase-sensitive demodulation of the sensor output
signal u(t) as shown in Fig. 4.

signal preprocessing unit

Uf: \l )
phase phase-sensitive *
generator .^ v *-
shifter demodulation
ji ^

w eddy current u(t)

sensor

Figure 4: Preprocessing unit of an eddy current sensor.

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

*(*)

Figure 5: Characteristic signal of a differential eddy current sensor.

demodulation of the sensor output signal u(t) is used. The demodulator

output signals u^(t) and u^(t] depend on the phase shift (p of the carrier
signal, which can be set by the phase shifter. For (p — 0, the output signals
become
U£ — Re{u} , %?, = Im{^} (4)
with the component Re{u} in-phase to the carrier signal and the quadrature
component Im{u}.
The phase-shifter allows the rejection of undesirable signals [11]. It can
be shown that the signal u^(i) is not affected by tilting movements of the
sensor (which are mainly caused by the spring suspension of the vehicle), if
the phase shift (p is adjusted adequately [4]. Therefore, the signal u^(t) is
used as sensor signal s(t).
Fig. 5 shows a sensor signal s(x), which typically results when a dif-
ferential sensor is moved over a rail clamp along a homogeneous rail. A
zero-crossing of s(x) occurs at x — x^. The differential sensors suppress any
d.c. content due to a homogeneous rail which carries no relevant informati-
on, and only the a.c. content useful for the correlative speed measurement
is amplified.

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

1266 Computers in Railways 111

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

Figure 7: Cross-correlation coefficient Q\^(vr} measured on (a) straight

track; (b) rail switch.

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

1268 Computers in Railways Vll

Figure 8: Measured maximal cross-correlation coefficients k.

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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