Field operational testing for safety improvement of freight trains using wireless monitoring by sensor network

Abstract

Today, the majority of wagon failures on railroad systems are because of the poor maintenance of ball bearings, which causes emergent stops and delays. The existing stationary detectors, lack in predicting failures which cause troubles in scheduling maintenance. During the fall of 2011, a trial was performed by applying a wireless sensor network (WSN) aboard a train wagon with the objective to demonstrate a proof of concept for monitoring the temperature of ball bearings aboard the train wagon. This trial investigates several key aspects when applying sensor networks such as radio wave propagation, energy scavenging and performance of the WSN aboard the wagon. Two wireless links were used in the WSN. The aboard network communicates at 2.45 GHz, and the external communication is an 868 MHz radio frequency identification radio link. Since the energy in the WSN node is limited, appropriate energy scavenging devices are also presented and evaluated in a lab environment. Effort has been made to overcome these problems. The energy consumption in the network is still a problem; the most promising energy scavenging technique is piezoelectric harvesting by vibrations, which in the experiments scavenged 2.32 mW.

Study and results of an onboard brake monitoring system for freight wagons

“…In general, the measurements presented in literature do not exceed 200 km on railway lines 15,16 or are conducted on European railway test circuits (e.g. Velim (CZ)).…”

Two paradigms in cellular Internet‐of‐Things access for energy‐harvesting machine‐to‐machine devices: push‐based versus pull‐based

“…a desolate plain or desert). Some applications/prototypes such as water/gas metering systems [3], aquatic environmental monitoring [4], and transportation monitoring [5] have realised energy‐harvesting M2M communications via wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and wireless ad hoc networks. Since the energy arrives fitfully, the system achieves self‐sustainability and is maintenance‐free.…”

Development of piezoelectric energy harvester for autonomous power supply of railroad freight cars

“…The obtained data show the possibility of creation of autonomous power supply based on piezoelectric energy harvester. д ля обеспечения навигационной поддержки железнодорож ного транспорта, а так же повышения безопасности при движении грузовых составов необходимо разработать авто-номный источник питания, который позволит обеспечить электроэнергией необходимые устрой-ства определения местоположения и датчики контроля [1,2]. В последнее время появились раз-работки и прототипы устройств, на основе кото-рых возможно преобразование энергии из внеш-ней среды в электроэнергию [3].…”