JPH07324919A - Track inspection apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To photograph an object to be inspected without missing it in a track inspection apparatus which is mounted on a running vehicle. CONSTITUTION:A track inspection apparatus is composed of illuminating devices 12-1, 12-2 which illuminate a rail 9 and of photographing devices 11-1, 11-2 which photograph the rail 9. It is provided with a plurality of imaging systems 1-1, 1-2 which perform a photographing operation by a photographing signal from a control device 3 and with an image processor 2 which processes image information photographed by the photographing devices 11-1, 11-2. The control device 3 outputs the photographing signal to a plurality of the imaging systems 1-1, 1-2 at a time interval at which the rail 9 is photographed so as to be overlapped.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an orbit inspection device for inspecting an orbit laid on the ground, and more particularly to a non-contact type which is mounted on a vehicle running on an orbit and inspects the orbit as the vehicle runs. Orbit inspection device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a conventional orbital inspection device, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
-225208. The image pickup means of this orbit inspection device has an image pickup section and an inspection object detection section (seam gap detection section). The inspection object detection section detects an inspection object (for example, rail seam gap) and a detection signal thereof. On the basis of the above, the imaging unit photographs the inspection object, stores the image, and passes the image on the spot or in the image processing apparatus to automatically measure the inspection measurement value such as the play distance value.

[0003]

In such a conventional trajectory inspection apparatus, only the image of the portion where the inspection object is determined to be present by the inspection object detection unit separate from the imaging unit
Since the processing is not performed, this inspection object detection unit is essential for inspection. However, it is very difficult to reliably detect the inspection object in all cases because the railroad track is used under severe conditions. For example, when measuring and inspecting the rail joint gap, it is possible that the scratches on the rail surface are erroneously determined to be the gap, or if some foreign matter is clogged in the rail joint gap, the rail joint gap may be overlooked.

Further, the image pickup section can take a picture at a relatively free timing by a synchronizing signal from the outside, but if the picture signal thus taken is not output as an output signal, the picture taking operation can be carried out thereafter. Can not. Therefore, if it passes the inspection target that should be originally captured at the time when it is impossible to shoot immediately after shooting by mistakenly determining it as the inspection target,
There is a problem that the part to be inspected is missed.

Further, since the inspection object is detected by the inspection object detection unit, the imaging unit photographs the image, and the inspection object is extracted again from the image, the inspection object is not detected. There is also a problem in that the reliability is likely to be lower than that in the case where the inspection target is detected by using either one of the two means, which is troublesome. The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a trajectory inspection device that can perform imaging without overlooking an inspection target.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, a track inspection device of the present invention is a track inspection device to be mounted on a track running vehicle, and an image capturing means for capturing a track and the image capturing means. Image processing means for processing the image information photographed by the means, and control means for controlling these, and the imaging means comprises a plurality of imaging systems including an illumination device for irradiating the orbit and an imaging device for imaging the orbit. Photographing is performed in accordance with a photographing signal from the control unit, and the control unit outputs the photographing signal at a time interval for photographing a plurality of imaging systems while overlapping a part of the trajectory.

Further, the image processing means may further comprise a storage means for measuring the trajectory inspection item and recording the inspection item measurement value.

[0008]

The orbit inspection apparatus of the present invention photographs the entire line of the orbit without any gaps in order to prevent the inspection object from being overlooked. That is, the control means outputs the photographing signal to the plurality of image pickup systems of the image pickup means at time intervals such that the orbits are overlapped and photographed, and the photographing devices of the respective image pickup systems receive the photographed signals to photograph the orbit. To do. In this way, it is possible to take images without gaps over the entire trajectory line. Further, the image processing apparatus can process the photographed image information, measure the orbital inspection item of the orbital inspection object, if necessary, and record the measured value in the storage means.

Regarding the time interval of the output of the photographing signal from the control means, the following means can be adopted. That is, the plurality of image pickup systems are arranged while being shifted in the longitudinal direction of the orbit while giving overlapping ranges to the image pickup ranges of the orbits of the respective image pickup systems, and the control means controls the previous image pickup range and the next image pickup by all the image pickup systems. Imaging signals are simultaneously output to each imaging system so that the ranges overlap. In this case, a odometer for detecting the mileage of the track-traveling vehicle may be further provided, and the photographing signal may be output at every constant mileage, and the photographing signal may be outputted at every constant time interval. You may output.

As another means, the control means may output the photographing signals to the respective image pickup systems at different timings so that the image pickup ranges of the trajectories of the respective image pickup systems have an overlapping range.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the outline of the orbit inspection device of the present invention, and a plurality of imaging systems 1-1, 1-2, ... 1-
n and the plurality of imaging systems 1-1, 1-2, ... 1-
The image processing apparatus 2 connected to the image processing apparatus 2 and the control apparatus 3 and the storage apparatus 4 connected to the image processing apparatus 2. The trajectory inspection device also includes an external environment sensor 5, and the output signal of the sensor 5 is supplied to the control device 3.

FIG. 2 is a detailed configuration block diagram of the track inspection apparatus, which is an example of the track inspection apparatus having two image pickup systems and inspecting a rail joint clearance. This orbit inspection device is mounted on a vehicle 8 traveling on a rail 9, and the two imaging systems 1-1 and 1-2 are displaced along the longitudinal direction of the rail 9 and the head of the rail 9 is kept straight. In a position to look down from above,
Will be placed. Specifically, each of the image pickup systems 1-1 and 1-2 includes a photographing device 11-1, 11-2 and an illuminating device 12-, respectively.
1 and 12-2, and the imaging devices 11-1 and 11-2 are arranged such that the imaging ranges thereof overlap each other to some extent. This is so that even if the inspection target imaged by one of the imaging devices exists across the boundary of the imaging range, the entire inspection target object is normally captured on the other side. Therefore, the overlapping range is preferably set to a size that can include the inspection object.

The image processing device 2 connected to each of the image pickup systems 1-1 and 1-2 includes a sub-control device 21 that controls the image pickup systems 1-1 and 1-2 locally, and an image pickup system 1. -1, 1
A processing device 22 for processing an image captured at -2 and an auxiliary storage device 23 for that are included. External environment sensor 5
Is a radiation thermometer 51 that measures the temperature of the rail and the vehicle 8
An odometer 52 for measuring the mileage of Each measurement information from the radiation thermometer 51 and the odometer 52 is sent to the control device 3.

The control device 3 controls the entire device, determines the timing of photographing with respect to the image pickup systems 1-1 and 1-2 via the image processing device 2, and outputs a photographing signal. In order to take a continuous picture of the rail from the traveling vehicle,
The photographing range photographed by all of the photographing systems 1-1 and 1-2 in each photographing should appropriately overlap with the photographing range photographed immediately before that. If the shooting interval becomes too long, the continuity of images will be lost, and if it is too short, a lot of extra data will be held. Therefore, as will be described later, based on the shooting range of each of the shooting devices 11-1 and 11-2 and the traveling distance from the place where the previous shooting was performed, shooting is performed so as to have an overlapping range of an appropriate size. Is determined by the control device 3, and a photographing signal is output to the imaging systems 1-1 and 1-2 via the image processing device 2 in accordance with the determined timing.

In the image pickup systems 1-1 and 1-2, the image pickup signals are received by the image pickup devices 11-1 and 11-2 in response to the image pickup signal, and the illumination devices 12-1 and 12-2 are synchronized with the image pickup. Shooting is performed simultaneously by all imaging systems. Since it is necessary to take data on the traveling time of the commercial vehicle during the day when measuring the rail seam, it is necessary to take a picture during the day so as not to be affected by ambient light. Further, since the image is taken from the traveling vehicle, it is necessary to shorten the exposure time in order to prevent the ghost. In order to satisfy the above two conditions, it is necessary to perform strong irradiation that is not defeated by sunlight in a short time, and it is desirable to use strobe light sources as the illumination devices 12-1 and 12-2.

The images photographed by the photographing devices 11-1 and 11-2 are temporarily stored in the auxiliary storage device 23 in the image processing device 2, and the processing device 22 performs necessary processing.
Various modes are conceivable as the image processing at this time. For example, the processing unit 22 may perform processing until the rail joint clearance is calculated, or information compression such as binarization may be performed in order to compress the image information of the captured image. In addition, the storage device 4 does not perform any processing on the image.
To temporarily store the data in the auxiliary storage 2
It is also possible to simply record the data in No. 3.

The result of the necessary processing performed by the image processing device 2 is sent to the storage device 4 and stored therein. As described above, the result stored in the storage device 4 does not need to be an image, and only the inspection measurement value between the rail joint spaces can be recorded. In this case, the storage device 4 does not need to use a large capacity storage device. On the other hand, when saving as an image, it is preferable to use a time-lapse VTR, a mass storage device such as a magneto-optical disk. The storage device is selected according to the amount of information to be finally recorded.

Further, at the time of recording, it is advisable to record not only the photographed and processed results but also other numerical values necessary for the inspection at the same time. In the present embodiment, the mileage information obtained by the odometer 52 is simultaneously recorded in order to know which inspection measurement value corresponds to which rail gap. Further, since the rail clearance varies depending on the temperature condition, the rail temperature obtained by the radiation thermometer 51 is recorded at the same time. Also,
Record the measured time with a separate clock.

FIG. 3 shows the flow of the inspection process of the above orbital inspection device. Initially, the mileage is initialized (block 61), the mileage information from the odometer 52 is fetched (block 62), and the difference from the position where the previous photographing was performed,
That is, the travel distance from the position where the previous image was taken is obtained (block 63), and it is determined whether the difference has reached a certain value (block 64). If the difference has not reached the constant value, the above loop (blocks 62 to 64) is repeated. If the difference has reached the constant value, the lighting device 12-
1 and 12-2 are made to emit light (block 65), and at the same time, the photographing of the rail 9 is performed by the photographing devices 11-1 and 11-2 (block 66). Next, the illumination devices 12-1 and 12-2 stop emitting light (block 67), and the rail temperature information from the radiation thermometer 51 is taken in (block 68) in order to know the rail temperature at the time of photographing. The images captured by the image capturing devices 11-1 and 11-2 are processed by the image processing device 2 (block 6).
9), the result of the processing from the image processing device 2 and the information from the sensors of the radiation thermometer 51 and the odometer 52 are recorded in the storage device 4 (block 70). Then, it is judged whether or not the measurement is to be ended (block 71), and if the measurement is to be continued, the process returns to the block 62.

When comparing the position of the previous shooting determined in block 64 with a fixed value, this fixed value is set so that the image captured by each shooting overlaps with the image captured by the previous shooting to some extent. Is set to. The overlapping range is preferably set to a size that can include the inspection object, like the overlapping range for each imaging system. Figure 4
The explanatory diagram is shown in FIG. In FIG. 4 (A), reference numeral 75 denotes a range photographed by all of the photographing devices 11-1 and 11-2 in one photographing, and photographing is performed so as to have a photographing range 75 ′ of the previous photographing and an overlapping range 76. is doing. The distance intervals 77 and 77 ′ for each shooting are constant, but as shown in FIG. 4B, the shooting time intervals 78 and 78 ′ are not constant unless the vehicle 8 runs at a constant speed.

In the present embodiment, the case where there are two image pickup systems has been described for the sake of simplicity. However, the number of image pickup systems may increase to three or four depending on the required photographing range and resolution. it can. The faster the vehicle 8 travels,
The image pickup device of each image pickup system takes a long time to take another shot before the next shot can be taken again, which requires a wide shooting range. Therefore, the number of imaging systems may be increased according to the relationship between the rest time of the imaging device until the next imaging and the traveling speed of the vehicle.

Further, in the present embodiment, the number of image pickup devices included in each image pickup system is one, but the number of image pickup devices does not necessarily have to be one, and as in the case of photographing both side surfaces of the rail. It is also possible to equip each image pickup system with a plurality of image pickup devices when simultaneity is required. FIG. 5 is a view corresponding to FIG. 4 in another embodiment of the trajectory inspection device according to the present invention. This embodiment has the same configuration as that of FIG. 1, but the timing of shooting is determined based on the information from the odometer 52 in the previous embodiment. The timing of shooting is determined by a signal from a separately provided clock. The distance intervals 82, 82 'for each of the shooting ranges 80, 80' are not constant unless the vehicle 8 is traveling at a constant speed, but as shown in FIG. 5B, the shooting time intervals 83, 83 'are It will be constant.

If the time interval of photographing in this embodiment is set to be the same as that photographed when the vehicle 8 is traveling at a constant speed at the maximum speed by the method of the previous embodiment, It is possible to perform shooting while always ensuring the overlapping range 81 between the shooting range 80 and the previous shooting range 80 '.
However, when the vehicle is running at a low speed, the overlap range 8
Although 1 may be increased and the same inspection object may be photographed multiple times, it can be determined that they are the same from the information from the odometer 52 recorded at the same time. In this way, the inspection object photographed multiple times can obtain the measurement result as many times as the number of times it was photographed, which is the same as performing the inspection multiple times. A more reliable inspection can be performed.

FIG. 6 shows a third orbit inspection apparatus according to the present invention.
The partial block diagram of an Example is shown. In the present embodiment, the imaging devices 15-1 and 15-2 of the plurality of imaging systems are not arranged along the longitudinal direction of the rail, but are arranged close to each other along the transverse direction of the rail 9. Since the movement of the vehicle in the rail crossing direction is not so large because the movement of the vehicle is restricted by the rail, each imaging system does not need to have a large shooting range in the crossing direction. If multiple imaging systems are placed close to each other,
Even in such an arrangement direction, each imaging system can take an image of the entire rail including the inspection object.

In the operation of this embodiment, the control device 3 outputs the photographing signals to the respective image pickup systems in order at different timings. The imaging devices 15-1 and 15-2 shown in the figure alternately perform imaging at different timings, and each illumination device (not shown) performs irradiation in synchronization with each imaging device. If the timing of the image capturing signal is set to the same time interval as the image capturing timing divided by the number of image capturing systems when the vehicle 8 is traveling at the maximum speed by the method of the first embodiment, the image capturing is performed. It is possible to capture the entire rail line without interruption while ensuring the overlapping range of the imaging range of the device 15-1 and the imaging range of the imaging device 15-2.

Also in the case of the third embodiment, the vehicle 8
If the speed becomes slower, the same inspection object will be photographed a plurality of times. Therefore, it is the same as performing the inspection a plurality of times as in the second embodiment, and it is possible to use these plurality of measurement results. More reliable inspections can be performed. Further, in the case of the third embodiment, since the plurality of image pickup systems sequentially perform image pickup, it is easy to assign the order of image processing by the image processing apparatus 2 after image pickup.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since the rails are continuously imaged with a plurality of imaging systems, the inspection target is not missed and there is no need to separately prepare a device for detecting the inspection target. Therefore, it is possible to use it for other applications without significantly changing the mechanical structure of the device.

Further, since the inspection object is detected in one step, the reliability is improved. Further, when the vehicle travels at a low speed, the reliability of the inspection result can be improved by photographing the same inspection object multiple times.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an outline of a trajectory inspection device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a detailed configuration block diagram of a trajectory inspection device.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a flow of an inspection process of the trajectory inspection device of the present invention.

FIG. 4A is a time chart showing an imaging range of an orbit inspection apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 4B is a time chart showing an imaging time interval.

FIG. 5A is a time chart showing a photographing range photographed by a second embodiment of the orbit inspection apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 5B is a time chart showing a photographing time interval.

FIG. 6 is a partial block diagram of a third embodiment of the orbit inspection device according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1-1, 1-2, ... 1-n Imaging system 2 Image processing device 3 Control device 4 Storage device 8 Vehicle 9 Rail (track) 11-1, 11-2 Imaging device 12-1, 12-2 Illumination Device 15-1, 15-2 Imaging device 52 Odometer

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An orbit inspection device to be mounted on an orbiting vehicle, comprising image pickup means for picking up a track, and image processing means for processing image information picked up by the image pickup means.
The imaging means includes a plurality of imaging systems including a lighting device that illuminates the orbit and an imaging device that takes an image of the orbit, and performs imaging by the imaging signal from the control means. Is
A trajectory inspection apparatus, wherein the imaging signal is output at a time interval for imaging a part of trajectories for a plurality of imaging systems while overlapping. 2. The orbit inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing means further comprises a storage means for measuring an orbit inspection item and recording the inspection item measurement value. 3. The plurality of image pickup systems are arranged so as to be shifted in the longitudinal direction of the orbit while having overlapping ranges in the image pickup ranges of the orbits of the respective image pickup systems, and the control means is arranged to perform the previous image pickup by all the image pickup systems. So that the range and the next shooting range overlap,
The orbit inspection device according to claim 1, wherein the imaging signals are simultaneously output to each imaging system. 4. The track inspection apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising an odometer for detecting a mileage of the track running vehicle, wherein the photographing signal is output for each fixed mileage. 5. The orbit inspection apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the imaging signal is output at regular time intervals. 6. The orbit inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit outputs the imaging signals to the respective imaging systems at different timings so that the imaging ranges of the trajectories of the respective imaging systems have overlapping ranges.