Patent ID: 6490523
Filing Date: 2002-12-03
Classification: B61L

Abstract:
A method for determining locomotive consist, at least some locomotives of the locomotive consist having an on-board tracking system comprising a locomotive interface, a computer coupled to said locomotive interface, a GPS receiver coupled to the computer; and a communicator coupled to the computer; the computer programmed to determine a position of the locomotive based on a signal received by the receiver and to transmit the position via the communicator, the computer further programmed to obtain locomotive discretes from the locomotive interface and to transmit the locomotive discretes via the communicator, said method comprising the steps of:operating each on-board system to determine when its respective locomotive departs a locomotive assignment point; operating the on-board system of each departing locomotive to determine a departure condition when any of the respective locomotives depart the locomotive assignment point; operating the on-board system of each departing locomotive to send a locomotive position message to a data center at a time corresponding to the locomotive assignment point; operating each on-board system to simultaneously collect GPS location data for each respective locomotive; and at the data center, collecting locomotive position messages corresponding to locomotive assignment point to determine localized groups of locomotives; identifying candidate consists and lead locomotives; associating trailing locomotives with a single lead locomotive based on geographic proximity; determining an order of the locomotives in the locomotive consist having a respective on-board tracking system; and determining the location of at least one locomotive in the locomotive consist that does not include a respective on-board tracking system.