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We present a network of wireless ultra-low-power sensors with the main purpose of detecting the derailment of a freight car and alerting the engineer in the cab of the leading locomotive. Due to the lack of a power supply in freight cars, we plan to rely on energy scavenging from vibrations. This implies that the energy requirements of the system m...
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In order to meet the ever-increasing freight capacity demand, operation of heavy-haul freight trains with a 50,000 t capacity has been widely studied for a decade in China. A typical heavy-haul train with a large capacity employs multiple locomotives that are evenly distributed along the train, and each locomotive, or two or more locomotives, hauls...
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... 21 Although the focus of research works and industrial R&D is more on high-speed passenger trains, performing CM and CBM also in this field would allow to ensure less risk of accidents (especially derailments) connected to the degradation of both the vehicle components and the track. 22 There is therefore an evident necessity to equip freight trains with cheap and reliable sensors able to continuously acquire data for these purposes. ...
While rail freight transportation is gradually becoming a crucial asset in the context of decarbonization of the transport sector, new standards and requirements in this field aim at improving the safety and reliability of freight vehicles and the infrastructure. From this perspective, Condition Monitoring and Condition Based Maintenance are becoming essential tools to improve systems reliability through the use of in-service instrumented vehicles. On the contrary of high-speed applications, freight trains are actually not provided with any monitoring systems able to carry out this kind of analyses. In this context, an innovative hybrid monitoring system composed by wireless sensor nodes and a gateway was developed to be suitably mounted on a freight wagon. Sensor nodes, power supplied by solar energy, are able to carry out synthetic indices from vibration measurements, while the gateway acquires correlated GPS and odometry information. In order to take advantage of the acquired data, a software based on a geo-localization algorithm created for high-speed applications was developed in order to correlate vibration data to the railway line mileage. A field campaign allowed to test the system on a real freight wagon and to acquire many experimental data. Using the collected experimental data, in the paper is shown how the developed software can be used to perform diagnostic activities of the infrastructure. Moreover, it is demonstrated that relying on the only GPS information is sufficient to get enough accurate georeferenced data for freight trains applications. This paves the way to the future development of a completely wireless system able to perform condition monitoring of both the vehicle and the infrastructure minimizing the impact on the vehicle.
... In high speed railway systems like the Japanese Shinkansen and the German ICE 3, the cost, safety and performance requirements make continuous monitoring of vehicle components an unavoidable condition to ensure safe operation [2]. With the price and size reduction of sensors, microcontrollers and electronic components [3][4][5] there are emerging opportunities for other railway sectors to Manuscript Bernal.) The authors are with the Centre for Railway Engineering (CRE), Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, QLD 4702, Australia (email: e.bernalarango@cqu.edu.au). ...
Continuous real-time monitoring of unpowered railway vehicles such as general freight and heavy haul wagons is still limited by hardware scalability and power consumption challenges. This paper proposes an innovative sensor node hardware architecture that reduces power consumption and hardware costs by introducing an Analogue Fault Detector based on analogue signal processing. This technique allows data intensive fault detection and condition monitoring algorithms to be run by simple microcontrollers, reducing memory, execution time and computational requirements. An on-board wheel flat detection sensor node was tested in laboratory conditions using a hardware-in-the-loop setup, to quantify the improvements and explore the viability of the proposed sensor node architecture approach. The power required to detect a wheel flat defect in a simulated acceleration signal was reduced by one order of magnitude and the memory requirement was reduced by three orders of magnitude for the data acquisition and processing stage, compared to traditional sensor node hardware architectures. This is particularly relevant in data intensive applications using accelerometers for monitoring railway vehicles. The improvements delivered by the introduction of an Analogue Fault Detector in a sensor node hardware architecture are promising for further development of on-board ultra-low power condition monitoring sensor nodes for railway applications.
... For equipment that demands higher power, the PZ configuration is more appropriate owing to its higher specific power. This will enable assembling several devices in series and/ Furthermore, if there is no need to provide continuous power to the desired device, it is possible to associate the energy harvesting system with storage (such as capacitors or rechargeable batteries [59]). This would store the generated energy until a required level of energy (to keep the device running before executing the task) is used up cyclically. ...
Heavy haul trains used to transport commodities are generally very long and operated by a single individual. Owing to high noise levels from the rolling stock displacement, the driver cannot notice failures in the compartments. It is practically impossible to visually inspect the wagons located far from the locomotive. Sensors that can measure in-train forces may improve the train’s operation, indicating potential failures and preventing accidents and derailments. However, the freight cars employed in most of the railroads are not equipped with electric power sources, making inspections unlikely. Therefore, an energy harvesting system must be developed for the sensors to avoid the need for periodic battery charging or replacement. As a high level of kinetic energy is present in the rolling stock, a vibration energy harvester (VEH) system is an acceptable alternative. Among VEH devices, multi-beam piezoelectric materials used in planar zigzag (PZ) or orthogonal spiral outer fixed (OSo) configurations can be effective alternatives. These can be powered by low-frequency strains readily available in the freight cars. This study investigates the optimum geometries of PZ and OSo aiming to increase the generated power and minimize the structure mass with a focus on their application to ore wagons. Among the optimum solutions, the OSo geometry generates the maximum power, up to 20.93 mW, which is sufficient to feed some critical devices. Conversely, the PZ configurations present the highest energy density, up to 16.595 mW/kg(m s⁻²)², which allows for a more suitable solution to be combined in serial and/or parallel pack configurations.
... The wireless sensor-node derailment detector in the research stage proposed by Macucci et al. (2015) with a traditional all-digital signal processing approach, cost less than 32 AUD by that time. By using an analogue signal processor, it would be possible to deliver the same functionality with further reduced cost and power consumption, since it would require a simpler microprocessor which would consume less power. ...
On-board real-time condition monitoring of wagons, as distinct from measuring track irregularities using wagons, is still not well developed for heavy haul applications. Track-side equipment detects a wide variety of component and vehicle faults, but is not able to diagnose the train at all times during the trip. Every year, a significant amount of resources are consumed on repairs and downtime caused by faults that could be detected early by equipment mounted on the vehicles. Furthermore, the absence of real-time information of the condition of each wagon leaves the train system at risk to occasional and catastrophic failures and derailments. A comprehensive study has been conducted to establish the current state of the art of on-board condition monitoring systems for unpowered vehicles. Advances in sensors, energy harvesting, and condition monitoring techniques were studied, to explore the possibility of installing health monitoring systems onboard each vehicle of the train. Several applications with the potential to be used in the heavy haul railway industry were found. Application cost, robustness and power supply were identified as still the main challenges to implement real-time condition monitoring using onboard sensors. A positive cost-benefit ratio will enable fleet-wide onboard monitoring applications. Hence, the possibility exists for a real-time prognosis and advanced data analytics that enhances rail transport performance levels, and give real-time warnings of severe and fast developing vehicle faults. An innovative hardware architecture that enables low-power and low-cost sensor-nodes for real-time heavy haul wagon monitoring applications is presented.
... Transportation and smart cities researchers have demonstrated WSNs application in freight train derailment detection [36] and urban train transportation systems [37], and street parking [38]. In [39], sensor nodes were used in condition monitoring to detect and identify rail track degradation before an accident can occur as shown in figure 10. ...
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have received significant attention from various researchers in terms of its architecture, design, challenges and supporting technologies, and so on. Also, their applications to different aspect such as structural health monitoring, health care, precision agriculture, intelligent transport systems have been reported. Though, some authors have reviewed different aspects of wireless sensor nodes, including applications, this paper presents a short survey of selected literature from a pool of articles reporting application cases of ultra-low power WSNs published in 2010-2017. In this paper, specific design requirements for using ultra-low power sensor nodes were highlighted. In addition, existing solutions to challenges encountered when using WSNs for the selected applications were examined. This short survey will help readers and practitioners with scholarly resource needed for understanding the state-of-the-art in ultra-low power wireless sensor applications and offers insight into areas for further research. It will also help researchers to become aware of potential collaborators in future works involving WSNs.
... The cost of wireless communication hardware for condition monitoring in 2007 was reduced to ¼ of its 2000 price [15]. Nowadays, the components required to integrate a condition monitoring sensor-node (processor, wireless radio, battery, and sensor) cost less than 20 euro [16]- [18]. This price reduction enables the development of specialized low-cost condition monitoring applications for the freight railway sector. ...
... Given the rising popularity of WSNs, and the possibility of implementing them in condition based monitoring for freight railway vehicles, Macucci et al. [16], [17] developed a low cost, ultra-low power sensor-node for detecting derailments on freight wagons, envisaged to be powered via vibration energy harvesting (inductive, capacitive, piezoelectric) coupled with a supercapacitor. Texas Instruments CC1110 system-on-chip was the main component, having an integrated transceiver and ultra-low-power sleep mode. ...
... According to this literature review, acceleration signal evaluation seems to be the most common derailment detection strategy. Several applications found [16], [17], [34], [82], [86] used acceleration analysis (mechanical and digital) for detecting derailment events. ...
Given the constant demand for heavier, longer, faster and more efficient rail freight vehicles, onboard fault detection systems appear as a good approach for enhanced railway asset exploitation. Real-time condition monitoring reduces inefficient preventive and reactive maintenance actions, decreases waste from replacing parts that still have useful life, and improves availability and safety by real-time rolling stock diagnosis. There have been considerable advances in wayside monitoring applications, but these cannot achieve real-time continuous monitoring. With the price reduction and miniaturization trends of electronic devices, the cost of deploying wireless sensor networks onboard freight trains continues to become more feasible and accessible. On the other hand, the lack of onboard electric power availability on freight wagons appears as the major limitation for the implementation of these technologies. This article reviews recent onboard condition monitoring sensors, systems, methods and techniques, aiming to define the present state of the art and its potential application for freight wagons without onboard electric power.
... Due to the numbers of coach of the train and immense in level of noise, the train crew will be unnoticeable about the derailment. Derailment will cause severely damage kilometers of track and hit the train at opposite site of track [2]. To improve the railway security, a lot of creations have been done in designing and implementing a detector device of the wheel trains. ...
... The traditional approached is a device that purely in mechanical technique that located in the two ends of train coaches and touched with the train brake line. But, these types of detector are come out with drawbacks which are very costly and complexity in their installation [2]. Thus, to improve the traditional method, an onboard wireless sensor networks (WSNs) was introduced. ...
... The parameters calculated by equation (1)(2)(3)(4) are applied in the antenna as seen in Figure 1 The FR-4 material has a relative permittivity value of 4.8 and the initial height is 1.6mm. The result of the calculation is as follows: To obtain the S11 graph that falls on the desired frequency, all the calculated values obtain in Table 1 are adjusted. ...
Antenna for a wireless sensor network for early wheel trains damage detection has successfully developed and fabricated with the aim to minimize the risk and increase the safety guaranty for train. Current antenna design is suffered in gain and big in size. For the sensor, current existing sensor only detect when the wheel malfunction. Thus, a compact microstrip patch antenna with operating frequency at 2.45GHz is design with high gain of 4.95dB will attach to the wireless sensor device. Simulation result shows that the antenna is working at frequency 2.45GHz and the return loss at -34.46dB are in a good agreement. The result also shows the good radiation pattern and almost ideal VSWR which is 1.04. The Arduino Nano, LM35DZ and ESP8266-07 Wi-Fi module is applied to the core system with capability to sense the temperature and send the data wirelessly to the cloud. An android application has been created to monitor the temperature reading based on the real time basis. The mainly focuses for the future improvement is by minimize the size of the antenna in order to make in more compact. In addition, upgrade an android application that can collect the raw data from cloud and make an alarm system to alert the loco pilot.
... Consequently, most degraded crossings are reactively replaced when they reach severe degradation. The limitations of manual inspection motivate the development of on-board monitoring technologies, such as ultrasonic measurement [4,5], eddy current testing [6,7], magnetic induction [8], image recognition [9][10][11], vibration-based inspection [12,13], guided-wave inspection [14], radio detection and ranging sensors [15,16], thermography [17,18], acoustic emission systems [19,20] and ground-penetrating radar [21,22]. ...
In this paper, we investigate the capability of an axle box acceleration (ABA) system to evaluate the degradation at railway crossings. For this purpose, information from multiple sensors, namely, ABA signals, 3D rail profiles, Global Positioning System (GPS) and tachometer recordings, was collected from both nominal and degraded crossings. By proper correlation of the gathered data, an algorithm was proposed to distinguish the characteristic ABA related to the degradation and then to evaluate the health condition of crossings. The algorithm was then demonstrated on a crossing with an unknown degradation status, and its capability was verified via a 3D profile measurement. The results indicate that the ABA system is effective at monitoring two types of degradations. The first type is uneven deformation between the wing rail and crossing nose, corresponding to characteristic ABA frequencies of 230–350 and 460–650 Hz. The second type is local irregularity in the longitudinal slope of the crossing nose, corresponding to characteristic ABA frequencies of 460–650 Hz. The types and severity of the degradation can be evaluated by the spatial distribution and energy concentration of the characteristic frequencies of the ABA signals.
... The use of WSNs in rail domain is not new, starting from solutions for structural health monitoring and infrastructure surveillance [9], train ride quality testing [10], derailment detection [11], freight train and the goods they transport monitoring [12], etc. and ending up with different solutions for train integrity monitoring [13], [14], [15] and [16]. The use of WSNs on freight trains is particularly advantageous, since there is no electrical wiring along the train and no power source on the rear vehicle. ...
... Our concept, which has been recently presented [5], is an extension of what has already been done on some passenger trains: a solid-state accelerometer measures the 0018-9456 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. ...
... This paper is an extension of our contribution [5] to the 2015 M&N Conference, with the addition of a more in-depth and more quantitative analysis of the energy budget, of the description of an improved algorithm for configuration and operation, and of experimental results obtained on a prototype network, including a test of the functionality of the radio links on a real train and a practical verification of the initial configuration algorithm. ...
We report the development of a network of wireless ultralow-power sensors to be deployed on freight railway cars, with the main purpose of detecting derailment events and alerting the engineer in the cab of the leading locomotive. Because no power bus is available on freight cars, we plan to rely on energy scavenging from vibrations; therefore, minimization of the power consumption has been one of our main priorities. We have, therefore, focused on ultralow-power hardware and strived to reduce the time intervals during which it is in active mode, achieving an average power consumption of ~0.5 mW with an active cycle of ~20 ms every 2 s. We discuss the overall concept that we propose, including the self-initialization protocol and the communication strategy that we have developed, and present the results of measurements on a prototype network that we have implemented.
