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Method and apparatus for estimating train locationRelated Patent Categories: Data Processing: Vehicles, Navigation, And Relative Location, Vehicle Control, Guidance, Operation, Or Indication, Railway VehicleMethod and apparatus for estimating train location description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060212183, Method and apparatus for estimating train location. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is also a continuation in part of application Ser. No. 10/785,059 filed Feb. 25, 2004, claiming the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application 60/449,849 filed on Feb. 27, 2003. [0002] This application is also one of the below listed applications being concurrently filed: [0003] GEH01 00166 Application Serial No. ______ entitled "Cost Reactive Scheduler And Method For Managing Unpredictable Local Trains"; [0004] GEH01 00167 Application Serial No. ______ entitled "Method And Apparatus For Optimizing Maintenance Of Right Of Way"; [0005] GEH01 00168 Application Serial No. ______ entitled "Method And Apparatus For Coordinating Railway Line-Of-Road and Yard Planners"; [0006] GEH01 00169 Application Serial No. ______ entitled "Method And Apparatus For Selectively Disabling Train Location Reports"; [0007] GEH01 00170 Application Serial No. ______ entitled "Method And Apparatus For Automatic Selection Of Train Activity Locations"; [0008] GEH01 00171 Application Serial No. ______ entitled "Method And Apparatus For Congestion Management"; [0009] GEH01 00172 Application Serial No. ______ entitled Method And Apparatus For Automatic Selection Of Alternative Routing Through Congested Areas Using Congestion Prediction Metrics"; and [0010] The disclosure of each of the above referenced applications including those concurrently filed herewith is hereby incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0011] The present invention relates to the scheduling of movement of plural units through a complex movement defining system, and in the embodiment disclosed, to the scheduling of the movement of freight trains over a railroad system, particularly to the estimating of the location of the trains in the railroad system. [0012] Systems and methods for scheduling the movement of trains over a rail network have been described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,154,735, 5,794,172, and 5,623,413, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. [0013] As disclosed in the referenced patents and applications, the complete disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, railroads consist of three primary components (1) a rail infrastructure, including track, switches, a communications system and a control system; (2) rolling stock, including locomotives and cars; and, (3) personnel (or crew) that operate and maintain the railway. Generally, each of these components are employed by the use of a high level schedule which assigns people, locomotives, and cars to the various sections of track and allows them to move over that track in a manner that avoids collisions and permits the railway system to deliver goods to various destinations. [0014] As disclosed in the referenced applications, a precision control system includes the use of an optimizing scheduler that will schedule all aspects of the rail system, taking into account the laws of physics, the policies of the railroad, the work rules of the personnel, the actual contractual terms of the contracts to the various customers and any boundary conditions or constraints which govern the possible solution or schedule such as passenger traffic, hours of operation of some of the facilities, track maintenance, work rules, etc. The combination of boundary conditions together with a figure of merit for each activity will result in a schedule which maximizes some figure of merit such as overall system cost. [0015] As disclosed in the referenced applications, and upon determining a schedule, a movement plan may be created using the very fine grain structure necessary to actually control the movement of the train. Such fine grain structure may include assignment of personnel by name as well as the assignment of specific locomotives by number and may include the determination of the precise time or distance over time for the movement of the trains across the rail network and all the details of train handling, power levels, curves, grades, track topology, wind and weather conditions. This movement plan may be used to guide the manual dispatching of trains and controlling of track forces, or provided to the locomotives so that it can be implemented by the engineer or automatically by switchable actuation on the locomotive. [0016] The planning system is hierarchical in nature in which the problem is abstracted to a relatively high level for the initial optimization process, and then the resulting course solution is mapped to a less abstract lower level for further optimization. Statistical processing is used at all levels to minimize the total computational load, making the overall process computationally feasible to implement. An expert system is used as a manager over these processes, and the expert system is also the tool by which various boundary conditions and constraints for the solution set are established. The use of an expert system in this capacity permits the user to supply the rules to be placed in the solution process. [0017] Of significant value in planning train movement is the evaluating of the current location of the train, i.e., is the train on, ahead or behind schedule. Train location reports may be automatically issued by sensors along the line of road, but such sensors may be few in number and are expensive and difficult to maintain. Train location reports are required to be submitted by train personnel at periodic intervals, but voice communication by radio is subject to all of the idiosyncrasies of radio wave communications and dependant on the attention of the train personnel. Train location reports may be automatically submitted using on board systems such as GPS, but such equipment is not available on all trains or in all environments and is expensive. The information in these reports as to the location of a train is used as it becomes available to automatically update the planned movement of the trains. [0018] In some prior art systems, the trains were equipment with sensors which allowed dead reckoning techniques to be performed to estimate the location of the trains. For example, if the location of a train is determined through a fix based on a location determination system such as a wayside transponder, GPS, or other fix determining system, an onboard sensor such as a wheel counter can be used in conjunction with a track database to determine the velocity of the train along the track and thus estimate the position of the train along its planned movement path. [0019] However, it is common for trains not to access to location determination systems and thus the location of train may not be known absent some communication from the crew as to the location of the train. Without an estimate of the train location, dispatchers are hesitant to schedule resources which could case conflict with the train. In addition, with an estimate of the location of the train, automated scheduling systems can not be used to plan the continued movement of the train. [0020] There are areas known as track warrant territory where the movement of the trains is controlled by the dispatcher by the issuance of form-based track authorities, e.g., the authority for a specific train to be on a specific section of track in a specified period of time. Such authorities may allow movement of the train over a large area and the location of the train at a specific moment in time may differ significantly from the location planned for that train at that time. The issuance of such track authorities as requested by the train provides a valuable clue as to the location of the train and provides an opportunity for the dispatcher to adjust the limits of issued authorities and to issue additional authorities. Reference to the issuance of such authorities may improve the estimate of train location and thus increase the efficiency of the system. The use of the issuance and the release of movement authorities has not previously been used to estimate the location of trains. [0021] It is an object of the present invention to improve the ability of the dispatcher to estimate the location of the trains under his control. This improvement is achieved by the use of information based on the issuance of movement authorities by the dispatcher in conjunction with the release of movement authorities by the crew of the train. [0022] The issuance and release of track warrants of authorities as requested by the train may be used as an estimate of train location by the movement planner to more accurately plan the movement of the train over the rail network. Continue reading about Method and apparatus for estimating train location... 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