ENSCO, Inc., awarded patent for rail components video inspection system
Written by jrood
ENSCO, Inc., has received a patent for its Video Inspection System for Rail Components from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patent covers the company's innovative machine vision system and methods for inspection of rail components such as turnouts, fastenings and joint bars using advanced fully automated machine vision techniques.
In support of increased
railroad safety and efficiency demands, the innovative approaches covered under
this patent address new applications for imaging rail components from a moving
vehicle for the purpose of automatically detecting the presence of a rail
component and inspecting it for possible unsafe conditions. The technology is
currently applied on many automated Joint Bar Inspection systems deployed
throughout North America and is being integrated in ENSCO’s other advanced
image processing systems. To date, these systems have detected the presence of
over 11,000 defective rail joints that have been verified on the ground and
replaced. Additionally, this patent protects other automated systems that
promote industry safety and efficiency including Switch and Fastener Video
Inspection.
