CAT-VW

Contactless overhead line diagnostic and measuring equipment installable on any type of railway Vehicle (height, stagger and Wear)

CAT-VW

Contactless overhead line diagnostic and measuring equipment installable on any type of railway Vehicle (height, stagger and Wear)

- The system CAT-VW can be used outside and inside tunnels.
- The system CAT-VW will be installed on a vehicle supplied by the customer.
- The CAT-VW system performs measurements without contact at a vehicle speed from 0 up to 360 km/h.
- The CAT-VW system can work by day and by night.

CAT-VW

The system will be installed on-board the vehicle. The following draft shows the mounting positions of all components.

The CAT-VW system is composed by the following equipment that is installed on the vehicle. Please note that we cite here optional equipment which will be described in further detail in the following sections.

ON THE ROOF OF VEHICLE

- BOX MEASURING HEIGHT STAGGER AND WEAR (must be installed aligned to the wheels, in a side view)
- GPS ANTENNA
- (optional) PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) CAMERA FOR OHL AND PANTOGRAPH VIDEO INSPECTION
- (optional) CAMERA FOR PANORAMIC VIDEO
- (optional) TUNNEL PROFILE SENSOR
- (optional) POLES DISTANCE SENSOR

INSIDE THE VEHICLE

- POWER SUPPLY BOX
- COMPUTER UNIT
- USER'S MONITOR AND KEYBOARD

- ON THE WHEELS

- ENCODER
- (optional) VEHICLE MOVEMENTS COMPENSATION TRANSDUCERS

(optional) ON THE PANTOGRAPH

- (optional) ACCELEROMETERS ON CARBON STRIPS
- (optional) PANTOGRAPH VOLTAGE METER
- (optional) PANTOGRAPH CURRENT METER

CAT-VW
Parameters measured by the system

The system CAT-VW measures height, stagger and wear of up to 4 contact wires at the same time (and more than 4 if required).
Contact wire height: with the precision of 1 cm.
Contact wire stagger: with the precision of 1 cm.
Contact wire thickness: with the precision of 1/10 mm (*).

The measured parameters are displayed in the form of graphs by means of software that is part of the measurement system. The following picture shows an example of this software. Please note that the highlighted areas demonstrate the system's capability to correctly detect and measure the required parameters even for 4 contact wires at the same time. As stated at the beginning of this Section, it can handle even more contact wires if required.

The proposed overhead line measuring and inspection system is contactless equipment that is able to measure the main contact line parameters by means of a computerized automatic analysis of the images of the contact surface of wires in the overhead line.


CAT-VW on MAINTENANCE VEHICLE IN MILANO:

CAT-VW
Measurementes in the tunnel

The CAT-VW system is able to operate in the dark and in the Tunnel atmosphere (slightly dusty and damp) with the precision and resolution criteria described in Section 3 above.

We have already tested the proposed system CAT-VW in similar conditions in many contexts inside (and outside) tunnels as Metro of Paris (France), Metro of Barcelona (Spain), Metro North of New York (USA), Italian State railway tunnels under Milano (Italy) and under Torino (Italy), Slovenian State Railways (Slovenia) and also inside the Running Tunnels of EUROTUNNEL.

Here is a picture of the system working inside a Running Tunnel of EUROTUNNEL where you can see dusty and damp atmosphere on the light beams:

This device is able to scan the profile of tunnels and to measure the distance of any object from the limit shape.

It works indeed outside the tunnels too and it can, in any position, measure the distance of any element in the surroundings of the vehicle. This makes it possible both to measure the surrounding infrastructure and to detect presence and position of obstacles.

During the measurements it is possible to see a drawing of the tunnel in real time. Data is automatically synchronized to all the other measured data: when you click the mouse on a position of the graph, the software will immediately show the drawing of the tunnel profile corresponding to that position. Below it is possible to view some different types of tunnel shown by this device:

CAT-VW
Video Equipment

The system can support multiple cameras in order to have multiple videos in the same time. All cameras and videos are synchronised together and to the measured parameters. It is possible to see frame by frame all the videos in every position of the graphs of measured parameters. All videos are synchronized to the measured data automatically, when you click the mouse on a position of the graph, the software will immediately show the image of each video corresponding to that position. In the following example there are 4 videos, and one of them is a thermographic camera.

OVERHEAD LINE AND PANTOGRAPH VIDEO INSPECTION
This equipment allows the customer to complement the contactless measuring system with a high-speed camera device capable of "photographing" a fault on the catenary system.

This device will be capable of operating in the Tunnels and providing images:
- showing absence of a constituent part of the catenary.
- showing damage to a constituent part of the catenary.
- confirming an obvious geometry fault already detected by contactless measurement.

A camera mounted on the roof of the vehicle records a video of the pantograph and of the overhead line. Since this is a PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) camera, it is possible to set the desired view by pointing to specific parts of the pantograph or of the overhead line.

During measurement analysis the acquired videos are synchronized to the measured parameters and to all the other videos (if present).

VIDEO OF SURROUNDING INFRASTRUCTURE (PANORAMIC VIEW)
It is possible to install a digital camera, either on the roof or in the driver cabin that during measurements records a panoramic video of the infrastructure surrounding the vehicle.

During measurement analysis the acquired videos are synchronized to the measured parameters and to all the other videos (if present).

THERMOGRAPHIC INSPECTION
During measurements a thermographic camera on the roof of the vehicle records the video of the interaction between pantograph and overhead line and also other infrastructure elements, so that it is possible to see frame by frame the temperature of each point the thermographic camera focuses on in every position of the graphs of measured parameters.

During measurement analysis the acquired videos are synchronized to the measured parameters and to all the other videos (if present).

CAT-VW
Measurementes location

Our CAT-VW system will include an automatic locating device so that each measurement point can be matched with the exact survey position.

This locating device will be based on the following technologies:
- GPS (used outside tunnels).
- Wheel mounted encoder (always working).

The system will continuously acquire information from all these devices in order to determine the exact position in every situation.

The system can take measurements in both directions the vehicle it is installed on can run.

CAT-VW
Pole Detection and Distance

This instrument detects the presence and the distance of the poles with respect to the track.

Data collected during scanning runs is shown in real-time and saved for subsequent analysis, indicating at a specific point the presence of a pole and the distance relative to the rail.

In the screen below is shown an example of the data with the information about the position of the poles:

CAT-VW
Height and Stagger position of all the wires near to the Pantograph

The system can measure the position of all wires in the catenary, not just of the contact wires.

The following examples are taken from a measurement run along the line RFI-Italian Railways in Milan.

CAT-VW
Devices installable on the Pantograph

It is possible to add to the system some modules installable on the pantograph. Each of them provides data that will be shown in real-time during the measurements and automatically synchronized to all the other measured parameters.
This makes it part of the information that is displayed by the software when a specific position on the graph is clicked.

ACCELEROMETERS ON CARBON STRIPS

By accelerometers on the carbon strips of pantograph, the system can measure all the accelerations and the shocks that the pantograph gets from the hard points on the contact line. This information about accelerations on pantograph is very useful to immediately find all these hard points of overhead line that can damage the pantograph, increase the wear of carbon strips, and create electrical arcs.

PANTOGRAPH VOLTAGE METER

The system can measure the voltage of the overhead line flowing through the pantograph. The following example is taken from a measurement run along the Metro North line from New York to Boston and shows the voltage in kV:

PANTOGRAPH CURRENT METER

The system can measure the current, positive and negative, flowing through the pantograph. In the following example the current absorbed by the vehicle is in red colour, while the current given back by the vehicle to the overhead line is in green colour:

CAT-VW
Measurementes Compensation Device

Because the measurement system will be installed on board a rail module, the rail module dynamics may affect measurement precision.

Thus the CAT-VW measurement system can be equipped with transducers to compensate and immediately correct the measurement, in order to take account of the potentially disruptive movements of the mounting vehicle.

This compensation device is composed of transducers, between the wheels and the car body, that measure the movements of the vehicle with respect to the tracks, in order to compensate the final results of overhead line measurements.
At the same time, this device can give the measurement of the vehicle dynamics.

The following pictures are showing the way it works:

CAT-VW
Measurementes Diplay and Analysis

The CAT-VW measurement system includes software for measurement display and analysis. By this software, measurement display in real time during scanning is also possible. For each of the criteria described in Section 3, it is possible to immediately display the results in the form of curves. With our CAT-VW: Alert thresholds can be configured in this software. Data analysis after scanning is possible using the same software. It is possible to printout the measurement reports on paper.

The picture below shows an example screen from the included CATVIEW software performing real time measurement display, during scanning:

The acquired data is displayed as both curves and numerical values together with a graphical representation of the measured wires.
Below we provide some examples that show the same software used for measurement analysis, after scanning in front of your desk.

The next picture shows graphs representing all the measured parameters for each of the contact wires:


With CATVIEW it is also possible to visualize the wires as they're seen by the system at a specific position in the measurement run, as you can see in the picture below.


Clicking on the graph of measured parameters, the CATVIEW software shows the exact numerical values of the parameters in that point of the line and a Google map with the vehicle position (when GPS signal is available).


If optional components (videos…) are selected by EUROTUNNEL and installed as parts of the system, data acquired from those devices is shown by the same software, both in real time (during scanning) and during measurement analysis.
The following picture is an example of the integrated visualisation.


Please note in the following example that all data, videos and maps are synchronised. The video of pantograph and the video of panorama are showing the same bridge that is visible on the Google map. This is a very powerful instrument to immediately find the position of measurements on the map.