JP5402096B2 - Vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that measures the traveling position of an electric railway maintenance vehicle used for maintenance of overhead lines, tracks, and the like, and in particular, the traveling position and passage time of an electric railway maintenance vehicle by image processing. The present invention relates to a vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance that acquires the relationship between

  As electric railway facilities, there are mainly overhead lines (hereinafter referred to as trolley lines) and tracks (hereinafter referred to as rails). Each of these is an important maintenance facility for operating the railway.

  The trolley line contacts the current collector every time the electric railway vehicle passes while operating the electric railway vehicle. For this reason, the trolley wire gradually wears out, and if it is not replaced, it may eventually break and cause an accident. In addition, the rails are bent, distorted, scratched, worn, etc. due to train operation, and if these progresses are left unattended, there is a risk of causing an accident such as derailment of an electric railway vehicle.

  Because of this, in order to quickly grasp the point of caution due to wear on the trolley wire or rail, and to respond to this, the position of the point of caution on the trolley wire or rail (for example, how many kilometers you traveled from a certain point) It is an important matter from the viewpoint of maintenance and management to specify information such as the location that requires attention at the location.

  Currently, when performing maintenance on equipment such as trolley wires and rails, maintenance-only vehicles and track-and-rail vehicles are used, and if a point requiring attention is detected as a result of inspection, the vehicle when the data was acquired The position of a point requiring attention is estimated from the position of (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  Here, as a method for specifying the position of the vehicle, conventionally, for example, there is a method using an automatic train control device (ATC) or a rotary encoder, and each has the following characteristics.

  The automatic train control device controls the position and speed of the train, and is originally a system for driving the vehicle, but this automatic train control device communicates information on the train position and speed to the outside. A mechanism is in place. Therefore, when the position of the vehicle is specified using the automatic train control device, the position of the maintenance-only vehicle is specified using a mechanism that communicates with the outside of the automatic train control device (for example, Patent Document 2). reference).

  In addition, when specifying the position of the vehicle using a rotary encoder, based on the rotation speed of the wheel obtained by the rotary encoder, a certain point is set as a reference position from the rotation speed of the wheel and the circumference of the wheel. The travel distance of the vehicle is obtained (see, for example, Patent Document 3).

JP 2008-89523 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-248412 JP 2004-17700 A

  However, when using the above-described automatic train control device, in addition to installing transmission / reception equipment on the vehicle side, it is necessary to install transmission / reception devices at regular intervals on the rail side, so it is installed in a long-distance line section In such a case, there is a problem that the number is large and the cost is high.

  Also, because the rotary encoder is configured to measure the travel distance by counting the rotation angle of the wheel, the wheel is rotating while the train is not progressing due to braking, traveling on a slope, etc., or There is a problem in that it may become difficult to specify the position of a point requiring attention due to an incremental increase in locally generated errors such as the train moving while the wheel is not rotating due to the slip of the wheel. there were.

  In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to provide an electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus that can specify the relationship between the traveling position of the vehicle and the passage time with high accuracy.

A vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance according to a first invention for solving the above-mentioned problem is a line sensor installed on a roof of a vehicle for photographing a hanger installed at equal intervals and supporting a trolley wire. Vehicle position measurement for electric railway maintenance that includes a camera and an image processing unit that is installed inside the vehicle and analyzes an image acquired by the line sensor camera, and identifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image in which the image processing unit arranges the image signals photographed by the line sensor camera in time series; and the hanger from the line sensor image. Hanger detecting means for detecting, and time recording means for outputting the time when the hanger is photographed when the hanger is detected by the hanger detecting means , And having a time when the hanger is photographed, and a recording device for storing a detection result of said hanger.

  An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to a second invention for solving the above-mentioned problems is the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the first invention, wherein the hanger detecting means is registered in advance. It is a template matching means for detecting the hanger from the line sensor image by a template matching process for detecting a feature in the line sensor image based on a template.

  An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to a third aspect of the present invention for solving the above-mentioned problems is the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the first aspect of the invention, wherein the hanger detection means is the line sensor image. It is an edge detection means for detecting an edge extending in the vertical direction as the hanger.

According to the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance according to the first invention described above, the line sensor camera installed on the roof of the vehicle for photographing the hanger installed at equal intervals and supporting the trolley wire, and the vehicle A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance, comprising an image processing unit that is installed inside a vehicle and that analyzes an image acquired by a line sensor camera, and identifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image in which image signals taken by the line sensor camera are arranged in time series, a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger from the line sensor image, and a hanger detecting means and time recording means for outputting the time this hanger is photographed when the hanger is detected, and the time in which the hanger is photographed, inspection of the hanger Because it has a result and a recording device that stores, by utilizing for installation in a generally equally spaced overhead wire hanging is hanger, by obtaining the time taken hanger by the line sensor camera, and the traveling position of the vehicle passing The relationship with time can be specified with higher accuracy. Therefore, by comparing the time at which the hanger is photographed with the time at which a cautionary point in maintenance of the trolley wire or rail detected by the equipment maintenance system is detected, the position of the cautionary point can be specified with high accuracy. . That is, there is an advantage that it is easier to specify the position of the point requiring attention more accurately than when specifying the position of the point requiring attention based on the utility poles having long installation intervals and unequal intervals.

  In addition, since it is possible to specify the relationship between the traveling position of the vehicle and the passage time using only one line sensor camera, there is no need to add a large facility on the ground side as in the case of an automatic train control device. Can be kept at a low cost.

  Furthermore, because the hanger detection process is performed independently for each line sensor image created at regular time intervals, errors that are partially generated are added as in the case where the position of the vehicle is specified using a rotary encoder. There is no possibility of errors being accumulated, and the relationship between the travel position of the vehicle and the passage time can be specified with high accuracy.

  In addition, because it is configured to shoot the hanger in a non-contact manner using a line sensor camera, it is not necessary to consider collisions with existing structures, and basically in all sections even where existing structures exist. Photography is possible, and measurement can be performed continuously. Further, high-speed operation is possible, and a long distance section can be measured in a short time.

  According to the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the second aspect of the present invention, the hanger detection means detects the feature in the line sensor image based on the template registered in advance, and the hanger is detected from the line sensor image by the template matching process. Therefore, it is possible to accurately detect hangers present in the line sensor image.

  According to the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the third aspect of the invention, the hanger detection means is an edge detection means for detecting an edge extending in the vertical direction in the line sensor image as a hanger. An existing hanger can be detected with high accuracy.

It is explanatory drawing which shows the application example of the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the vehicle position measurement which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of the line sensor image acquired in Example 1 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of a hanger template. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of the result of having performed template matching with respect to the line sensor image in Example 1 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance which concerns on Example 2 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the vehicle position measurement which concerns on Example 2 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of the result of having performed edge detection with respect to the line sensor image in Example 2 of this invention.

  Hereinafter, details of the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  A first embodiment of an electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 1, in this embodiment, the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus includes a line sensor camera 2 installed on the roof of the vehicle 1 and an image processing unit 3 installed inside the vehicle 1. I have. Although not shown, in this embodiment, it is assumed that trolley wire wear measuring means for measuring the wear condition of the trolley wire 4 is installed on the roof of the vehicle 1. The trolley wire 4 is supported by hangers 6 that are installed on the suspension wire 5 at approximately equal intervals.

  The line sensor camera 2 is installed on the side of the roof of the vehicle 1, and the installation angle and elevation angle are set so that the optical axis thereof is orthogonal to the traveling direction of the vehicle 1 and the hanger 6 can be photographed. Is set. Note that the symbol L in FIG. 1 indicates a photographing line.

  On the other hand, the image processing unit 3 analyzes an image acquired by the line sensor camera 2 and obtains the traveling position of the vehicle 1, and includes an arithmetic device 31 and a recording device 32. As shown in FIG. 2, the arithmetic unit 31 includes a line sensor image creation unit 311 as a line sensor image creation unit, a template matching unit 312 as a template matching unit, a time recording unit 313 as a time recording unit, and a memory M1, M2 is provided. The line sensor image creation unit 311 has a function of creating a line sensor image based on an image signal input from the line sensor camera 2. The template matching unit 312 has a function of extracting hangers in the line sensor image by a template matching process that is an existing technique for the line sensor image. The time recording unit 313 has a function of outputting the time when the hanger 6 is photographed by the template matching unit 312. Various data is recorded in the recording device 32.

  The flow of processing by the arithmetic device 31 will be described based on FIG. As shown in FIG. 3, in the arithmetic unit 31 of the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment, first, an image signal is input from the line sensor camera 2, and the input image signal is stored in the memories M1, M2. To the line sensor image creation unit 311. The line sensor image creation unit 311 arranges the input image signals in time series to create a line sensor image as shown in FIG. 4 (step P1). The line sensor image created by the line sensor image creation unit 311 is recorded in the recording device 32 via the memory M2.

  The template matching unit 312 acquires parameters (here, parameters for specifying a template T registered in advance as shown in FIG. 5) and a line sensor image from the storage device 32 via the memory M2, and the template T Is used to perform template matching processing on the line sensor image, and detect the hanger 6 present in the line sensor image (step P2).

  The template matching unit 312 outputs a hanger detection flag when the hanger detection unit A that substantially matches the template T exists in the line sensor image as shown in FIG. 6 by the template matching process. The hanger detection flag output from the template matching unit 312 is input to the time recording unit 313 via the memory M2. When the hanger detection flag is input, the time recording unit 313 considers that there is a hanger (YES), whereas when the hanger detection flag is not input, it is regarded that there is no hanger (NO) (step P3).

  If it is determined in step P3 that the hanger 6 is present, the time when the hanger 6 was photographed is output as the hanger detection time (step P4). The hanger detection time output from the time recording unit 313 is stored in the recording device 32 together with the detection result of the hanger 6 through the memory M2. These processes of Step P1 to Step P4 are repeated during vehicle position measurement.

  Here, the trolley wire wear measuring means (not shown) is assumed to be stored in the recording device 32 along with the measurement result of the wear amount of the trolley wire 4 and the time when this measurement was performed.

  According to the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device according to the present embodiment configured as described above, the hanger 6 and the time when the hanger 6 passes through the hanger 6 in a non-contact manner using the image captured by the single line sensor camera 2; By recording the relationship, it is possible to specify the relationship between the traveling position of the vehicle and the vehicle passage time with high accuracy, and it is possible to operate even when the traveling speed of the vehicle 1 is high, A long distance section can be measured in a short time.

  Further, by synchronizing the time with an existing equipment maintenance system such as a trolley wire wear measuring means, the correlation between the position of the hanger 6 and the position of a trolley wire or a point requiring attention is highly accurate (for example, a certain utility pole) From what number of hangers 6 are detected, there is a point requiring attention). In addition, since the hanger 6 is detected in a non-contact manner using the line sensor camera 2, it is not necessary to consider a collision with an existing structure, and measurement is basically possible in all sections.

  Moreover, since it is the structure which detects the hanger 6 from the image image | photographed with the one line sensor camera 2, and synchronizes the position and time of the hanger 6, a big installation is added to the ground side like an automatic train control apparatus. There is no need for this, and the detection processing is performed independently for each image (line sensor image created every fixed time), so there is no partial error addition as with a rotary encoder, and measurement error. Can be minimized.

  In the above-described embodiment, the example in which the template matching unit 312 outputs the hanger detection flag when the template matching process detects the hanger detection unit A that substantially matches the template T in the line sensor image is shown. The process in the matching part 312 is not limited to this, For example, you may make it output the presence or absence of the hanger 6. FIG.

  A second embodiment of the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. In this embodiment, instead of the template matching unit 312 of the arithmetic device 31 in the first embodiment described above, an edge detection unit 314 as edge detection means shown in FIG. 7 is used. The other configurations are substantially the same as the configurations of the first embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 to 6 described above, and hereinafter, members having the same functions are denoted by the same reference numerals, and redundant description is omitted, and different points are provided. The explanation will be focused on.

  As shown in FIG. 7, in the present embodiment, the arithmetic device 31 includes a line sensor image creation unit 311, an edge detection unit 314, a time recording unit 313, and memories M <b> 1 and M <b> 2. The line sensor image creation unit 311 has a function of creating a line sensor image based on an image signal input from the line sensor camera 2. The edge detection unit 312 has a function of detecting edges extending in the vertical direction existing in the line sensor image by edge detection processing that is an existing technique. Thereby, the trolley line 4 and the suspension line 5 extending in the horizontal direction in the line sensor image are regarded as noises other than the hanger 6, and only the hanger 6 can be detected from the line sensor image. The time recording unit 313 has a function of outputting the time when the hanger 6 is photographed by the template matching unit 312.

  The flow of processing by the arithmetic device 31 will be described with reference to FIG. As shown in FIG. 8, in the arithmetic unit 31 of the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment, first, an image signal is input from the line sensor camera 2, and the input image signal is stored in the memories M1, M2. To the line sensor image creation unit 311. The line sensor image creation unit 311 arranges the input image signals in time series to create a line sensor image as shown in FIG. 4 (step P1). The line sensor image created by the line sensor image creation unit 311 is recorded in the recording device 32 via the memory M2.

  The edge detection unit 314 acquires a line sensor image from the storage device 32 via the memory M2, and performs processing for detecting only an edge extending in the vertical direction with respect to the line sensor image (step P2). In the line sensor image, the trolley line 4 and the suspension line 5 are displayed as objects extending in the horizontal direction, and the hanger 6 is displayed as an object extending in the vertical direction. As shown in FIG. 9, only the hanger 6 can be extracted.

  The edge detection unit 314 outputs a hanger detection flag when the hanger 6 is detected in the line sensor image by the edge detection process. The hanger detection flag output from the edge detection unit 314 is input to the time recording unit 313 via the memory M2. The time recording unit 313 considers that the hanger 6 is present (YES) when the hanger detection flag is input, and assumes that the hanger 6 does not exist (NO) when the hanger detection flag is not input (step P3).

  If it is determined in step P3 that a hanger is present, the time when the hanger 6 was photographed is output as the hanger detection time (step P4). The hanger detection time output from the time recording unit 313 is stored in the recording device 32 together with the detection result of the hanger 6 through the memory M2. These processes of Step P1 to Step P4 are repeated during vehicle position measurement.

  According to the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment configured as described above, the same effects as those of the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the first embodiment described above can be obtained.

  In the above-described embodiment, the example in which the edge detection unit 314 outputs the hanger detection flag when the hanger 6 is detected in the line sensor image by the edge detection processing has been described. For example, the presence or absence of the hanger 6 in the line sensor image may be output, and it goes without saying that various modifications are possible without departing from the spirit of the present invention. .

  The present invention is suitable for application to an electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device for measuring the position of an electric railway vehicle used for maintenance of overhead lines and tracks.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Vehicle 2 Line sensor camera 3 Image processing part 4 Trolley line 5 Suspension line 6 Hanger 31 Arithmetic unit 32 Recording apparatus 311 Line sensor image creation part 312 Template matching part 313 Time recording part 314 Edge detection part A Hanger detection part M1, M2 Memory T template

Claims (3)

A line sensor camera installed on the roof of the vehicle for photographing hangers installed at equal intervals and supporting the trolley wire, and an image processing for analyzing an image acquired by the line sensor camera installed inside the vehicle A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time.
Line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image in which the image processing unit arranges image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series;
Hanger detection means for detecting the hanger from the line sensor image;
A time recording means for outputting a time when the hanger is photographed when the hanger is detected by the hanger detecting means ;
A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance , comprising: a recording device that stores a time at which the hanger is photographed and a detection result of the hanger . The said hanger detection means is a template matching means which detects the said hanger from the said line sensor image by the template matching process which detects the characteristic in the said line sensor image based on the template registered beforehand. Item 1. A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance according to Item 1. The vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance according to claim 1, wherein the hanger detecting means is an edge detecting means for detecting, as the hanger, an edge extending in a vertical direction in the line sensor image.

Images