GoTRAX – An infrastructure free, vision based navigation system
Has no reliance upon GPS and requires no additional infrastructure, only the rails
GoTRAX uses a sensitive low light infra-red camera to detect the rails, points and distance travelled in all operable weather. GoTRAX fuses optical flow distance measurements, and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data, with rail track and point detections to provide precise track identification, location and speed measurement. This information is correlated with a simple rail network map to provide a real-world location for the train with the option of outputting pseudo-GPS coordinates if Latitude/Longitude measurements are desired. Inherent reliability and robustness comes from no dependence on extra infrastructure, such as signs, and works simply by reading the rails.
Keeping maps up-to-date and synchronized with GoTRAX is not an issue. Map matching can be carried out on-board the train or the outputs of the GoTRAX camera can be sent back to a cloud server, via telecommunications (such as GSM/GSM-R/Sat-phone to name a few), to correlate data to one master copy of the map.
If GoTRAX is required for purposes other than rail operator monitoring then the map matching is carried out on the GoTRAX camera and real-world position is available in real-time on-board the train, without any cloud server communication necessary. New maps need only be uploaded, which can be done automatically via the cloud if significant changes in rail layout have occurred.
The GoTRAX system can be used as an input to driver advisory systems, or the system can be directly used to aid drivers with layout of track-ahead and upcoming signal status. GoTRAX can also be used for over-speed protection and collision prevention.
An alternative variant of GoTRAX can be used for the purpose of vehicle roll-back detection, GUARD – click here for more information.
GoTRAX provides an alternative to GPS and other infrastructure based navigation systems. As such it can be used for safe signalling and level-crossing control by progressing moving block technology.
One of the major advantages of GoTRAX is that the map required to navigate is very simple: a basic textual representation of possible routes and sets of points. Due to its simplicity it is unlikely that this map will really change over time. The map is easy to construct and can be generated automatically or can be created from existing knowledge of the rail network.
The data output by GoTRAX is simple and incredibly small in terms of byte size. As such, negligible load is placed on telecommunications. Some of the outputs of interest are; direction taken at last point (left or right), distance travelled since last point, speed and acceleration, UTC time-stamp, Latitude/Longitude equivalent GPS position. This is enough information for the GoTRAX cloud-based server to precisely pinpoint the position of any train to a specific track within a maximum of 2 metres longitudinal error at any time.
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