Patent ID: 8958079
Filing Date: 2015-02-17
Classification: B61K,B61L,G01B,G01C,G01M

Abstract:
1. A system for inspecting railroad ties in a railroad track, comprising: a. a light generator, oriented to project a beam of light across the railroad track while moving along the railroad track in a travel direction; b. an optical receiver, oriented to receive at least a portion of the beam of light reflected from the railroad track and configured to generate image data representative of a profile of at least a portion of the railroad track; and c. a processor, configured to analyze the image data by applying one or more algorithms configured to: wherein the processor comprises a machine vision algorithm for finding the boundaries of the railroad tie, the algorithm configured to: a. identify regions of the image data that are smooth relative to surrounding regions, relative to a smoothness threshold; b. find at least two edges of a smooth region, oriented approximately perpendicular to the travel direction; c. identify two of the found edges which are spaced apart by approximately a width of a tie as the first and second edges; and d. identify the first and second edges as the boundaries of the railroad tie.