RU2602516C1 - Snowplow working elements automatic control system - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: transport.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to control over railway cleaning equipment. System comprises two transceivers, which antennas are installed on snowplow roof in its head and tail parts and continuously emitting radio signal, irradiating base in horizontal plane with width equal to snowplow width with open wings at specified distance to snowplow. Two Doppler narrowing beams units DOL are performing radio-locating range-finding Doppler processing of reflected signals received by transceivers, computer based information processing and control unit calculates working members position and process obstacles coordinates and generates required combinations of signals levels at corresponding step bipolar electric motor windings. At that, system also includes front shield and side wings spool-type pneumatic valves, front shield and side wings pneumatic cylinders, controlling operation of corresponding working element, and working members position sensors.

EFFECT: preventing snowplow working members with process obstacle contact interaction.

1 cl, 3 dwg

Description

The present invention relates to railway transport, and in particular to systems designed to improve the safety of railway plow snowplows by automatically controlling the working bodies of the latter.

It is known (see. Rules for the Technical Operation of Railways of the Russian Federation: Approved by the Ministry of Transport of Russia on December 21, 2010 / M-transport of the Russian Federation. - Ed. Offic. - M .: Transinfo, 2011. - 255 pp.) That the use of snow plows on the stage, it is limited to technological obstacles, which include: crossings of railway crossings and pedestrian crossings, outdoor equipment KTSM, UKPSS, sensors of diagnostic complexes, counter rails, dropping arrows in front of bridges, tunnels, oversized traffic lights, contact network supports, etc. Technological obstacles are protected by temporary warning signs “Raise the knife, close the wings”, “Lower the knife, open the wings”, by which the driver brings the working elements of the snow thrower into the transport (frontal shield is raised, side wings are closed) or work (frontal shield is lowered, side wings are opened ) position, respectively.

Meanwhile, as the experience of clearing railway tracks with snow removal equipment shows, there may be cases of damage to railway infrastructure elements related to technological obstacles. The reasons for such incidents may be:

- the influence of the human factor;

- untimely installation of temporary signal signs;

- Closing the enclosing temporary signs with snowdrifts;

- accidental or deliberate removal of temporary characters;

- bad visibility.

Each of the technological obstacles is a crucial element in the system for ensuring the safety of railway traffic, their damage is unacceptable.

From the existing level of technology, the invention is known - the working body of a plow snowplow (copyright certificate for the invention number SU 1507897, publication date 09/15/1989), which contains a hoist mounted with the possibility of movement in the vertical direction by means of a pneumatic cylinder, and a fixed shield, on which has a counterweight made in the form of a visor. To transfer the working body from the transport position to the working one, air is supplied to the pneumatic cylinder. At the same time, the lifting shield lowers, and the visor rises up, balancing the mass of the lifting parts. When approaching the obstruction, compressed air is supplied to the rod cavity of the pneumatic cylinder by means of a pneumatic control valve, and the lifting shield rises rapidly, which is facilitated by the rotation of the visor.

The main disadvantage of this system is the manual control of a pneumatic crane when approaching a technological obstacle, which does not exclude the passage of the location of the obstacles with the working position of the plow blade.

The invention is known - the working body of a plow snowplow (copyright certificate for the invention number SU 1559032, publication date 04/23/1990), the blade of which is installed with the possibility of free movement in the vertical direction relative to the frame. Knives mounted pivotally to the blade in the lower part are mounted pivotally by means of a cam with a kinematically connected power cylinder. When cleaning snow while driving, the blade overcomes the resistance of the snow layer being cleaned. When a knife hits an obstacle, its resistance to movement sharply increases, the force of the cylinder is overcome, the knife rotates about its axis, takes a horizontal position and passes the obstacle without breaking. When the knife rests against an obstacle, the height of which is significant and the resistance to displacement increases even more, there is a vertical lifting force acting on the blade, the latter moves vertically upward and the knife bypasses the obstacle. After passing the obstacle, the blade drops down, the cylinder returns the knife to its original position.

The main disadvantage of this invention is the contact interaction of the blade knives with a technological obstacle, which is not acceptable for the designs of some of the obstacles. For example, contact with the UKPSS sensor may trigger the latter.

The objective of the proposed technical solution is to develop an automated control system for the plow blade of the snow blower, which eliminates the passage of the locations of technological obstacles with the working position of the working bodies.

This problem is solved due to the fact that the claimed system of automatic control of the working bodies of the plow blower includes two transceivers whose antennas are mounted on the roof of the snow blower in its head and tail and emit a continuous radio signal, irradiating the base in a horizontal plane with a width equal to the width of the snow blower when open wings at a predetermined distance to the snowplow; two blocks of the Doppler beam narrowing of the DOL beam, performing radar ranging-Doppler processing of the reflected signals received by the transceivers; a computer-based information processing and control unit that calculates the position of the working bodies and the “distance-spatial angle” coordinates of the technological obstacle and generates the required combinations of signal levels on the windings of the corresponding step-by-step bipolar electric motor; pneumatic valves of the slide valve type of the frontal shield and side wings; pneumatic cylinders of the frontal shield and side wings that control the operation of the corresponding working body; sensors of the position of the working bodies. The system can be supplemented with an audible alarm to transfer the working bodies to each of the provisions, as well as an alarm system malfunction components. The transceiver antennas preferably have a fan pattern.

The technical result provided by the given set of features is to prevent contact interaction of the working bodies of the snow plow with a technological obstacle, due to the timely automatic translation of the plow blade of the snow plow from the working position to transport, and vice versa, without the participation of the driver. This will eliminate the possibility of damage to the working bodies of the snow blower and the design of technological obstacles due to their contact, reduce the distance to the technological obstacle at which the snow thrower should move from the working position to the transport position by reducing the transition time, reduce labor and time costs of maintenance personnel by installation / dismantling of temporary signal signs “Raise the knife, close the wings”, “Lower the knife, open the wings”, as well as manual clearing of snow with shortened section of the path in front of the obstacle.

Thus, the introduction of an automatic control system for the working bodies of the snowthrower in the process of snow removal of railway tracks will increase the safety of snow removal and railway traffic, in general, and will also give a positive economic effect.

The essence of the utility model is illustrated by drawings, which depict: in FIG. 1 is a structural diagram of an automatic control of technological elements of a snow thrower; FIG. 2 is an explanation of determining the position of a technological obstacle with respect to the velocity vector of the snow thrower; 3 - pneumatic valve of the slide valve type, transfer of the technological body to: a) working position; b) transport position.

, m - число стробов дальности в зоне обзора, $$j=\overline{\mathrm{1,}n}$$

, n - число доплеровских фильтров; ЛЩ - лобовой щит; БК - боковые крылья; 1, 2 - соответственно, выход 1 и выход 2 блока обработки информации и управления.In FIG. 1 marked: DOL - Doppler beam narrowing; φ _ij is the angle of the position of the i, jth resolution element in the horizontal plane in which the obstacle is detected; $$i=\overline{\mathrm{one,}m}$$

, m is the number of range gates in the field of view, $$j=\overline{\mathrm{one,}n}$$

, n is the number of Doppler filters; HP - frontal shield; BK - side wings; 1, 2 - respectively, output 1 and output 2 of the information processing and control unit.

In FIG. 2 marked: φ ₀ , φ ₁ , φ ₂ , φ ₃ - the angles of the position of the axis of the path, the extreme points of the rails and the irradiated surface, respectively, in the horizontal plane; A - transceiver antenna; V is the velocity vector of the snow blower.

In FIG. 3 marked: PC - pneumatic cylinder.

The system for automatic control of the working bodies of a plow snowplow includes two transceivers whose antennas are mounted on the snow plow roof in its head and tail parts and emit a radio signal continuously, irradiating the base in a horizontal plane with a width equal to the width of the snow plow with the wings open at a given distance to the snow plow; two blocks of the Doppler beam narrowing of the DOL beam, performing radar ranging-Doppler processing of the reflected signals received by the transceivers; a computer-based information processing and control unit that calculates the position of the working bodies and the “distance-spatial angle” coordinates of the technological obstacle and generates the required combinations of signal levels on the windings of the corresponding step-by-step bipolar electric motor; pneumatic valves of the spool type of the frontal shield of the HP and the side wings of the aircraft; pneumatic cylinders of the frontal shield of the HP and the side wings of the BC, controlling the work of the corresponding working body; position sensors of working bodies.

The system operates as follows. The surface of the railway track during the movement of the snow thrower is irradiated by two antennas (preferably with a fan radiation pattern) of the transceiver 1 and transceiver 2 (Fig. 1) mounted on the roof of the snow thrower, respectively, in its center and tail parts in the center (projection of the main direction radiation antenna on the base coincides with the axis of the railway track). Antennas emit a continuous radio signal, irradiating the base in a horizontal plane with a width equal to the width of the snow thrower with the wings spread. In this case, the head and tail antennas are rigidly mounted at a certain angle to the irradiated base in such a way as to irradiate the surface at a predetermined distance from the snow thrower, sufficient to completely transfer the working body to the transport position in front of the obstacle.

The signals received from each antenna from the base are fed to the Doppler beam fouling units DOL1 and DOL2, in which the radar rangefinder-Doppler signal processing is performed.

, m - число стробов дальности в зоне обзора.1. The DOL unit includes M range gates (keys) that open sequentially and pass the reflected signal: from the signal to each of the time intervals [t ₀ , t ₀ + i · Δt], the ith signal components corresponding to the distance intervals are selected [D ₀ , D ₀ + i · ΔD], where ΔD is the resolution in range, $$i=\overline{\mathrm{one,}m}$$

, m is the number of range gates in the field of view.

, n - число фильтров. Каждому j-му элементу разрешения по частоте ставится в соответствие последовательность j-х элементов разрешения по доплеровскому углу α_j исходя из соотношения:2. From each i-th range gate, the signal is fed to the antenna beam narrowing algorithm: the Doppler frequency of the signal is estimated by multi-channel narrow-band filtering: the jth components corresponding to the frequency band [f ₀ , f ₀ + j · Δf] are selected from the signal where Δf = ΔF _f is the bandwidth of the nth filter, $$j=\overline{\mathrm{one,}n}$$

, n is the number of filters. Each j-th resolution element in frequency is assigned a sequence of j-resolution elements in the Doppler angle α _j based on the relation:

where V is the speed of the snow blower; λ ₀ - wavelength of the emitted signal; α _j - the angle of deviation of the beam from the velocity vector of the snowplow.

3. On a set of resolution elements in range (i-th row) and frequency (j-th columns) in the zone of a given direction of the beam, a matrix A of dimension m × n is formed in the form of a set of zeros and ones. If the amplitude of the signal of the i, jth element A (i, j) exceeds the detection threshold (corresponds to reflection from an obstacle), then “1” is formed in the matrix in place of the i, jth element, otherwise, “0”. Geometrically, the i, jth element is formed by the intersection of the conical surface of the antenna pattern with the spherical surfaces of the range and the conical surfaces of the Doppler angle.

The information processing and control unit on the basis of a computer calculates the “range-spatial angle” coordinates of the technological obstacle from the information from the DOL units and the position of the working bodies — from the signals of the LS frontal shield position sensors and BC side wings, after which it forms the required combinations of signal levels at the outputs . The latter enters the windings of the stepping bipolar electric motor of the frontal shield of the LS and the side wings of the BC. When an obstacle is detected by the information processing and control unit at the corresponding output (at output 1, when an obstacle is detected inside the track, i.e., for φ _ij ∈ (φ ₀ ; ± φ ₁ ) and ∉ (± φ ₂ ; ± φ ₃ ) ; at exit 2, when an obstacle is detected outside the track, i.e., for φ _ij ∈ (± φ ₂ ; ± φ ₃ ) and ∉ (φ ₀ ; ± φ ₁ ); at both outputs, when a mixed obstacle is detected, i.e., for φ _ij ∈ (φ ₀ ; ± φ ₁ ) and ∈ (± φ ₂ ; ± φ ₃ ), where φ _ij is the position angle of the i, jth resolution element in the horizontal plane in which the obstacle is detected, φ _0, φ _1, φ _2, φ ₃ - respectively, corners put tions path axis, the extreme points of the rails and the irradiated surface in the horizontal plane (Fig. 2)) is formed by a combination of signal levels at which required engine shaft is rotated by one step counterclockwise. The pneumatic crane of the frontal shield of the HP and / or side wings of the BC goes into position b) (Fig. 3), controlling the operation of the pneumatic cylinder PC of the front shield of the PS and / or side wings of the BC. The corresponding working body of the snowthrower - the frontal shield of the LS and / or the side wings of the BC, go into transport position. When an obstacle is traced from the antenna irradiation zone 1, the combination of signal levels on the motor windings does not change, the working body remains in the same position until this obstacle is traced from the antenna irradiation zone 2. Then, at the desired output of the information processing and control unit, a combination of signal levels is formed at which the shaft of the corresponding stepper motor rotates one step clockwise, the pneumatic valve goes into position a) (Fig. 3), the snow removal tool Tela - in working position.

If the snow plow has followed the obstacle by the irradiation zone of antenna 1, but has not yet followed the irradiation zone of antenna 2, and one more obstacle was detected by antenna 1, the information processing and control unit will not change the signals at the outputs until the second obstacle in the irradiation zone is detected antennas 2 and its progress from the irradiation zone of antenna 2.

The system can be supplemented with a sound signaling of the transfer of working bodies from the transport position to the working one and vice versa, as well as a signaling of a malfunction of various structural organs of the system according to the signals of the information processing and control unit (not shown in the figures).

The claimed system that implements a radar rangefinder-Doppler method of detecting a technological obstacle for automatic control of the working bodies of a plow snowplow when the latter moves along a railway track provides high reliability of detecting technological obstacles, the timeliness of moving the working bodies to the desired position at a predetermined distance to the obstacle without the participation of a snow plow driver.

Claims (2)

1. The system of automatic control of the working bodies of the plow snow blower, characterized in that it includes two transceivers whose antennas are mounted on the roof of the snow blower in its head and tail parts and emit a radio signal continuously, irradiating the base in a horizontal plane with a width equal to the grip of the snow blower with the wings open at a given distance to the snow blower; two blocks of the Doppler beam narrowing of the DOL beam, performing radar ranging-Doppler processing of the reflected signals received by the transceivers; a computer-based information processing and control unit that calculates the position of the working bodies and the “distance-spatial angle” coordinates of the technological obstacle and generates the required combinations of signal levels on the windings of the corresponding step-by-step bipolar electric motor; pneumatic valves of the slide valve type of the frontal shield and side wings; pneumatic cylinders of the frontal shield and side wings that control the operation of the corresponding working body; position sensors of working bodies. 2. The system according to p. 1, characterized in that it is supplemented by an audible alarm to transfer the working bodies to each of the positions, as well as an alarm of malfunctioning components of the system, the antennas of the transceivers have a fan beam pattern.

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