Composite real-time image processing for railways track profile measurement

Author

Alippi, Cesare ; Casagrande, Ettore ; Scotti, Fabio ; Piuri, Vincenzo

Author_Institution

Dipt. di Elettronica e Inf., Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Volume

49

Issue

3

fYear

2000

fDate

6/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

559

Lastpage

564

Abstract

Checking railway status is critical to guarantee high operating safety, proper maintenance schedule, and low maintenance and operating costs. This operation consists of the analysis of the rail profile and level as well as overall geometry and undulation. Traditional detection systems are based on mechanical devices in contact with the track. Innovative approaches are based on laser scanning and image analysis. This paper presents an efficient composite technique for track profile extraction with real-time image processing. High throughput is obtained by algorithmic prefiltering to restrict the image area containing the track profile, while high accuracy is achieved by neural reconstruction of the profile itself

Keywords

Gaussian distribution; condition monitoring; convolution; generalisation (artificial intelligence); image restoration; maintenance engineering; measurement by laser beam; radial basis function networks; railways; surface topography measurement; CCD cameras; Gaussian distribution; RBF network; algorithmic prefiltering; composite real-time image processing; convolution; generalization; high accuracy; high throughput; laser based measurement; laser scanning; maintenance; neural reconstruction; overall geometry; railway status checking; railway track profile measurement; track profile extraction; undulation; Costs; Fasteners; Geometrical optics; Geometry; Image analysis; Image processing; Image reconstruction; Pollution measurement; Rail transportation; Railway safety;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9456

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/19.850395

Filename

850395