JPH04346009A - Track inspecting apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To light a track and the surrounding part on the track by enhancing not only the upper part of the track which is the object to be inspected but also the surrounding part on the track when the image of the object to be inspected on the track of a railroad is photographed from a running rolling stock. CONSTITUTION:A pair of rod-shaped stroboscopes 5a and 5b as lighting means for emitting illuminating light for a TV camera which receives the image on a track are provided. The rod-shaped stroboscopes 5a and 5b are arranged in the direction orthogonal to the extending direction of a rail with the rail in-between. The TV camera 4 is arranged at the inner central part of a pair of the rod-shaped stroboscopes. A transmitting means 1 for emitting an energy beam on the track and a receiving means 2 for receiving the energy beam reflected from the track are arranged in the extending direction of the rail at the opposite sides with the image sensing camera in-between.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a track inspection device for inspecting tracks laid on the ground from a running track vehicle, and more specifically, the present invention relates to a track inspection device for inspecting tracks laid on the ground from a running track vehicle. The present invention relates to a track inspection device that takes images of an object to be inspected.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Railway tracks are generally used under harsh conditions, so track management is essential to maintain safe running of vehicles, and it is necessary to monitor all structures on the tracks. Conventional track inspections involve humans actually walking on the tracks visually or using measuring instruments, with the exception of some examples such as track deviation inspections such as rail gauge, level, height, flatness, etc. It was carried out by

0003

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the conventional measuring method as described above has a problem in that it requires a great deal of effort and time because a person walks on a track. The present invention has been made in view of these points, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a track inspection device capable of photographing only necessary inspection objects from a running vehicle and inspecting a track based on the photographed images. This is the purpose.

0004

[Means for Solving the Problems] For the above purpose, the present invention includes a transmitting means for irradiating an energy beam onto an orbit;
a receiving means for receiving an energy beam reflected from the orbit; a detecting means for detecting the presence of a specific structure on the orbit from a signal received by the receiving means; and a detecting means for detecting the presence of a specific structure on the orbit by the detecting means. A trajectory inspection device is employed, which includes an imaging means for capturing an image on the orbit based on a signal indicating that an object is detected, and an illumination means for supplying illumination light for the imaging means. And the lighting means:
The light source illumination means has a pair of light emitting parts, and the pair of light emitting parts are arranged perpendicularly to the rail extension direction with a rail in between, and the imaging means is arranged at the inner center of the light source illumination means, Further, the transmitting means and the receiving means are arranged in the extending direction of the rail, and are further arranged on opposite sides of the imaging means.

[0005]

[Operation] In the present invention as described above, an energy beam is irradiated onto a structure on orbit, and an energy beam reflected from the orbit is received. The detection means detects that the received signal from the reflected energy beam from the orbit is from a specific structure, thereby detecting the presence of the specific structure on the orbit. Then, based on this detection signal, an image of the object to be inspected on the orbit is taken by the imaging means and the light source illumination means. The specific structure on the orbit detected by the detection means and the inspection object photographed as an image need to have a substantially constant positional relationship, and may be the same structure. That is, for example, by detecting the rail gap, it is possible to photograph the rail gap itself as an object to be inspected, and it is also possible to photograph the rail gap itself as an object to be inspected. It is also possible to photograph the object as the object to be inspected.

For this reason, even if there are many objects to be inspected randomly on the track and a vehicle equipped with a track inspection device is running at high speed, the objects to be inspected may be a specific structure on the track. As long as the object is in a certain positional relationship, it is possible to reliably capture images of all objects to be inspected. The quality of the object to be inspected can be automatically determined by passing the photographed image through an image processing device on the spot or after taking it home, or the quality can be determined by a human being by looking at this image. . Further, in the embodiment of the present invention, a pair of rod-shaped strobes are arranged perpendicularly to the extending direction of the trajectory and across the trajectory, and a pair of rod-shaped strobes By setting a large opening angle, the object to be inspected on the orbit and around the orbit is illuminated almost uniformly. For this reason, the contrast of the object to be inspected on the orbit and in the peripheral area of the orbit photographed by the imaging means is enhanced by the light source illumination means, so that the process of recognizing the object to be inspected on the orbit and in the peripheral area of the orbit by image processing is performed. It is possible to increase the speed.

[0007]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be explained below based on the illustrated embodiments. This embodiment relates to inspection of rail joint clearances, and shows an apparatus that automatically takes images of joint clearances from a running vehicle.

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing the structure of an embodiment of the present invention, and shows a schematic structure cut in a direction perpendicular to the rail extension direction.

FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration taken in a direction parallel to the rail extension direction.

FIG. 3 is a plan view clearly showing the arrangement of the main parts of the structure shown in FIG. 1.

The entire device is mounted on the bottom or side of a moving vehicle 20. The laser beam emitted from the transmitting means 1 toward the rail 11 is reflected by the rail, and then
The light is received by the photodetector of the receiving means 2. As shown in FIG. 4, which is a plan view seen from the top of the rail, the laser beam 12 is converted into a slit-shaped light beam extending on the rail 11 in a direction perpendicular to the rail extension direction by an optical system within the transmitting means. It is irradiated as As the vehicle travels, the laser beam 12 sequentially scans the rail 11, and when the vehicle crosses the rail joint gap 13, the reflected light from the rail is temporarily cut off, and the reflected light is received by the receiving means 2. The light intensity temporarily decreases. By detecting this temporary decrease in the amount of received light with the detection means 3, the seam gap 13 is detected.

Next, the seam clearance detection signal obtained by the detection means 3 is transmitted to a TV camera 4 corresponding to the imaging means.
By inputting the information to the rod-shaped strobes 5a and 5b corresponding to the light source illumination means, the seam clearance 13 which is the object to be inspected is
automatically capture images. However, if the seam gap image and the laser beam are photographed at the same time, this will affect the measurement accuracy of the seam gap, so the laser beam should be turned off during the photographing, or the wavelength filter 10 should be attached in front of the TV camera 4. Laser light can be cut. For example, if an infrared semiconductor laser is used as the laser beam 12 and a wavelength filter that cuts this infrared wavelength is selected, a clear image can be obtained without reducing the amount of illumination light in the visible region necessary to take a picture of the room. can be obtained.

The TV camera 4 is arranged so that the scanning line direction of the TV camera coincides with the rail extension direction.
This reduces the time required to process images of objects photographed by a camera. Here, as shown in FIGS. 1 to 3, the TV camera 4 is arranged at the center inside the rod-shaped strobes 5a and 5b, and the transmitting means 1 and the receiving means 2 are arranged in the rail extension direction, and the TV camera 4 They are placed on opposite sides of each other. With this arrangement, it is possible to construct a device that emphasizes the following functions. Rod strobe 5
By arranging the strobes 5a and 5b perpendicularly to the rail extension direction and sandwiching the rails, and by making a large opening angle between the rod-shaped strobes 5a and 5b and the joint gap on the track, it is possible to The illumination of the photographing area is more uniform, and by arranging the TV camera 4 at the center of the inside, it is possible to photograph this uniformly illuminated photographing area from directly above. On the other hand, since the optical axis direction of the laser beam emitted from the transmitting means 1 and the optical axis direction of the laser beam incident on the receiving means 2 are in a regular reflection relationship with respect to the rail surface 11 as shown in FIG. It is possible to efficiently receive specularly reflected light from the rail. Further, the laser beam irradiated onto the rail by the transmitting means 1 is located near the center of the area of the rail photographed by the TV camera, and
If the time from when the seam gap is detected to when the rail image is photographed by the TV camera 4 is sufficiently short, the seam gap will be photographed almost at the center of the screen, regardless of the speed of the traveling vehicle. . The fact that the images between the seams are always taken from directly above and in the center of the screen means that it takes more time to search for the image location than when the images are in different positions each time. Therefore, the image processing process can be simplified and the image processing time can be shortened.

Further, the transmitting means 1 and the receiving means 2 are shown in the respective plan views of FIGS. 5(A) and 5(B) seen from the top of the rail,
As shown in FIGS. 6(A) and 6(B), which show a slit-shaped beam of light focused on the rail surface by the transmitting means 1, the laser beam 12 is transmitted through the optical system (laser light source 14,
(consisting of a collimator 16 and a cylindrical lens 17)
As a result, the light beam is irradiated onto the surface of the rail 11 as a slit-shaped light beam extending in a direction perpendicular to the rail extension direction. Examples of arranging the transmitting means 1 and receiving means 2 include arranging them in the longitudinal direction of the rail as shown in FIG. 5(A), and arranging them on opposite sides across the rail as shown in FIG. 5(B). There are two possible cases. In the case of the arrangement shown in FIG. 5(B), the optical system (consisting of the laser light source 14, collimator 16, and cylindrical lens 17) within the transmitting means generates a slit-shaped light beam (laser light 12) as shown in FIG. 6(B). Since the image is formed at an angle with respect to the surface of the rail 11, the width of the slit-shaped light beam becomes thicker as a whole, which becomes a factor in lowering the detection rate of the seam gap 13. On the other hand, in the case of the arrangement shown in FIG. 5(A),
As shown in FIG. 6A, since the slit-shaped light beam (laser light 12) is imaged on the rail 11 surface without being tilted, the width of the slit-shaped light beam is narrow and almost uniform. This is a small factor that lowers the detection rate. Therefore, it is effective to arrange the transmitting means 1 and the receiving means 2 in the longitudinal direction of the rail as shown in FIG. 5(A).

In this embodiment, the TV camera 4
In order to protect the transmitting means 1, receiving means 2, etc. from dust, water droplets, etc., the entire device is housed in a housing 7, and the emission and incidence of the laser beam and the photographing of images between the seams are performed through a transparent window. It is carried out through 8. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, there is a sunshade cover 9 surrounding the housing 7 and extending downward. This cover works as follows. The reason why a strobe is used in this embodiment is that its light emission time is sufficiently short and its emission intensity is sufficiently strong, so that it is possible to take a blur-free seam gap image even from a high-speed vehicle. However, if the rail part to be photographed is exposed to direct sunlight,
If the illuminance is equal to or higher than the contribution from the strobe, it will cause blur in the image between the seams. Therefore, it is necessary to block direct sunlight hitting the rail portion to be photographed, and this is done by the cover 9.

In this embodiment, in order to obtain a still image, a strobe light source that instantaneously illuminates the rail based on a seam gap detection signal was used as a light source illumination means consisting of a pair of bar-shaped strobes. It is not limited to. A TV that uses a bar-shaped light source as a point light source, or a bar-shaped and point light source that illuminates continuously, and has a high-speed shutter.
A still image may be obtained by using a camera and inputting the seam gap detection signal to a high-speed shutter TV camera. However, in this case, in order to obtain a still image sufficient for measuring the rail joint clearance value, the shutter speed of the TV camera needs to be sufficiently short with respect to the vehicle traveling speed. The seam gap image obtained in this way is
The image is recorded in the image memory 6. Then, by passing this image through an image processing device on the spot or after taking it home, the clearance value can be automatically measured, and a human can make a rough judgment of quality by looking at this image. You can also do it.

By the way, when measuring the rail clearance, it is necessary to measure the rail temperature at the same time, and if a radiation thermometer is used, the temperature can be measured in a non-contact manner in parallel with the image taking of the joint clearance. FIG. 7 shows a cross-sectional view in a plane perpendicular to the extending direction of the rail. As shown here, radiation thermometers 15, 15' are arranged on both sides of the housing 7 housing the track inspection device. The radiation thermometers 15, 15' measure the temperature of the side surfaces of the opposite rails 11', 11, respectively. The reason for measuring the temperature on the side surface of the rail is that since the top surface of the rail is close to a mirror surface, the emissivity is almost zero, making accurate measurement impossible. With this arrangement, the entire device including the radiation thermometer can be configured compactly. Furthermore, by inputting the seam gap detection signal into a radiation thermometer to measure the temperature, it is possible to obtain the rail temperature corresponding to the location when measuring each seam gap.

In the above description, the rail joint gap inspection has been described, but the track inspection device of the present invention is not limited to this, but can also be used for inspecting rail joint plates, rail fastening devices, etc. can do. In addition, although an optical configuration has been shown to detect a specific structure on orbit, it is not limited to this, and other methods such as ultrasonic waves may be used to detect a specific structure on orbit. Energy beams may also be used.

[0019]

Effects of the Invention According to the orbit inspection device of the present invention as described above, an energy beam is irradiated onto an orbit, an energy beam reflected from the orbit is received, and based on this received signal, the orbit is identified. The system detects the presence of structures on the track and captures an image of the object on the track, so as long as the object is in a certain positional relationship with a specific structure on the track, the object on the track will be detected. Even if there are a large number of objects to be inspected randomly and the vehicle equipped with the track inspection device is traveling at high speed, images of all the objects to be inspected can be reliably captured.

[0020] By arranging the light source illumination means perpendicularly to the orbital extension direction and with a large opening angle between the inspection object on the orbit and the peripheral portion of the orbit, and the pair of light source illumination means, Since the object to be inspected in the upper periphery is more uniformly illuminated, the inspection accuracy of the object to be inspected on the orbit and in the periphery of the orbit can be improved by image processing.

[0021] By installing such a track inspection device on a running vehicle and performing track inspections, many track inspections can be performed accurately in a short period of time, making track maintenance management much more efficient than before. can be converted into

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, and shows a schematic configuration taken in a direction perpendicular to the rail extension direction.

FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration cut in a direction parallel to the rail extension direction.

FIG. 3 is a plan view clearly showing the arrangement of essential parts of the configuration shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a plan view showing detection of rail joint play by laser light.

FIGS. 5A and 5B are plan views illustrating the arrangement direction of the transmitting means and the receiving means with respect to the rail extension direction.

[Figure 6] (A) and (B) are Figure 5 (A) and Figure 5 (B)
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating the inclination of a slit-shaped light beam that forms an image near the rail surface, corresponding to the arrangement direction of the transmitting means.

FIG. 7 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the configuration of the entire device including a radiation thermometer.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Transmitting means 2 Receiving means 3 Detecting means 4 Imaging means 5a, 5b Light source illumination means 12 Energy beam (laser light) 13 Specific structure (seam gap)

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A transmitting means for irradiating an energy beam onto an orbit, a receiving means for receiving an energy beam reflected from the orbit, and a method for detecting the presence of a specific structure on the orbit from a signal received by the receiving means. a detection means for detecting, an imaging means for capturing an image on the orbit based on a signal by which the detection means detects a specific structure on the orbit, and an illumination supplying illumination light for the imaging means. In a track inspection device having means, the illumination means:
The light source illumination means has a pair of light emitting parts, and the pair of light emitting parts are arranged perpendicularly to the rail extension direction with a rail in between, and the imaging means is arranged at the inner center of the light source illumination means, A track inspection device, wherein the transmitting means and the receiving means are arranged in the rail extension direction, and are further arranged on opposite sides of the imaging means. 2. The orbit inspection device according to claim 1, wherein the energy beam is a laser beam.