Patent ID: 6778284
Filing Date: 2004-08-17
Classification: B60M

Abstract:
An apparatus for continuously measuring the characteristic parameters of an overhead railway or tramway line, comprising:a laser source for generating a laser beam, optical means for transforming said laser beam, generated by said source, into a flat beam, means for orientating the axis of said flat beam at an angle other than 90Â° to the axis of the overhead line and defining with this latter a plan substantially perpendicular to the plane of said beam, a first video camera having its optical axis different from the axis of said flat beam but lying in said perpendicular plane and substantially orientated upwardly towards the light-emitting line of intersection of said laser beam with said overhead line, and a processing unit for the signals generated by said first video camera in order to determine the position of said light-emitting line within the optical field of said video camera, and to effect reconstruction of the real profile of said overhead line and its comparison with the theoretical profile of the overhead line itself.