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| Summary / Description | The prior art relates generally to wireless data collection and communications methods, apparatus and systems for interconnected mobile systems, such as railways. |
| Type of Prior Art | Issued Patents - US |
| Country | United States of America |
| Patent/Application # | 6,668,216 |
| Kind Code | United States (US) - United STATES Patent - A |
| Patentee Name | |
| Relevant Pages, Columns, or Lines | [Col 2 line 60 – Col 3 line |
| URL | http://www.google.com/patents/a... |
| Filing Date | May 18, 2001 |
| Additional Information | |
| Notes | |
Excerpt [Col 2 line 60 – Col 3 line 29]The railway data collection and communications system 10 includes two subsystems, an intra-train communications system 26 for communicating between the railway vehicles 12 forming the train 14 and an external communications system 28 for communicating externally from the train 14. A master control unit 30 forms an interface between the intra-train communications systems 26 and the external communications system 28. |
A rail car tracking system (10) comprising: rail car location equipment (12) mounted to a rail car (22), the equipment (12) including a transmitter (26) for transmitting rail car location data to a remote receiver (21) and further including an electronically readable tag (33) attached to the rail car (22) for identifying the rail car (22) to a wayside tag reader (36); and locomotive communication equipment (42) mounted in a locomotive (38) and adapted for communication with the rail car location equipment (12) when the rail car (22) and locomotive (38) are coupled into a common train, the locomotive communication equipment (42) being operative to identify the coupled rail car (22) and including a transmitter (48) for transmitting data to the remote receiver (21), the data including rail car data so that the required data transmission from the rail car transmission equipment (26) is reduced.
| Relevance | The Granted patent discloses communication methods, apparatus and systems for interconnected mobile systems, such as railways. In particular, the patent clearly discloses a rail car location equipment (an intra train communications system 26) and a locomotive communication equipment (an external communications system 28). Further the patent clearly describes that the locomotive communication equipment transmits both locomotive status data as well as status data of each rail car to the remote receiver (central control station). |
An integrated rail car tracking system (10) comprising; a plurality of fixed wayside automatic equipment identification (AEI) readers (36) spaced at predetermined locations along a railway for reading identification data from a AEI tags (33) on rail cars (22) passing along the railway; a locomotive tracking system (42) including an on-board GPS system (45) for providing data indicative of the location of the locomotive (38) and a transmitter (42) for transmitting the location data to a remote receiver (19); a rail car wireless message system (12) attached to a rail car (22) for sending periodic messages indicative of the location of the rail car (22), the message system including a GPS system (24) for generating data indicative of rail car location; and a local area network (LAN) established between the rail car (22) and an associated locomotive (38) whereby the rail car location data is transmitted to the locomotive tracking system (42) for transmission to the remote receiver (19).
| Relevance | [Col 3 lines 44 – 49] For example, the master control unit 30 may employ other components of the external communications system 28, such as a way side communications link 36, an AMTECH AVI interface, a 2-way radio interface 38, a satellite link 40 such as a global positioning system, and/or a cellular telephone interface 42. |
United States