Patent ID: 8430363

Claim:
A system for sensing a condition of a rail vehicle undercarriage component comprising: a sensor comprising an array of infrared sensing elements, each of the elements aimed at a different region of a target area of at least one rail vehicle undercarriage component to generate respective scanning waveform signature data corresponding to each different region, the sensor oriented so that at least one of the elements receives unobstructed infrared emissions from the at least one undercarriage component of a rail vehicle passing the sensor, wherein the at least one undercarriage component includes an inner wheel bearing of a rail wheel axle, wherein the inner wheel bearing is inwardly positioned relative to the rail wheel; a memory for storing characteristic waveform signature data corresponding to known undercarriage components; and a processor in communication with the sensor and the memory and configured to process the scanning waveform signature data with respect to the characteristic waveform signature data stored in memory to identify a type of one or more of the at least one rail vehicle undercarriage component being scanned, including identifying the inner wheel bearing and identifying the type of another component inwardly positioned relative to the wheel, the processor being further configured to extract information indicative of a health condition of at least one of the rail vehicle undercarriage components being identified, wherein the extracted information indicative of the health condition includes an infrared temperature profile, and wherein the infrared temperature profile includes a relationship between a temperature of the at least one rail vehicle undercarriage component versus temperature sampling points over time of an infrared emission from the scanned component.