Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Scania Cv Ab

Siemens Mobility Gmbh

Frank Gerstenberg

Johan Lindström

Florian Buehs

Juergen Francke

Goeran Saenger

Michael Lehmann

Holger Schererz

Goeran Keil

Oliver Graebner

Klaus Dietrich

Claus Bahlmann

Georg Kinnemann

Frank Voss

Jürgen Francke

Hauke Luebben

Gerhard Obier

Thomas Stark

Peter Knispel

Christian Klier

Florian Bühs

Christer Thoren

Hans-Peter Lang

Henrik Engdahl

Johan Lindstroem

Hasso Georg Gruenjes

Eckehardt Grimm

Hauke L&uuml;bben

Joachim Kuehnapfel

Göran Keil

Göran SÄNGER

Christer THORÉN

Hasso Georg GRÜNJES

A vehicle control facility for the automated control of an electrical road vehicle for a route system with an energy-supply system that includes a lane-bound energy supply line, in particular an overhead line system. A position-determining unit determines a geographical position of the electrical road vehicle. A specific-lane-determining unit determines position data for a specific lane assigned to the lane-bound energy supply line. A communication interface transmits current relative positions of infrastructure features with respect to the electrical road vehicle to an external central specific-lane-determining facility and receives position data. A vehicle-control unit controls the electrical road vehicle with respect to the determined specific lane in dependence on the determined relative position of the specific lane.

Vehicle control system and method for automated driving of a specific lane for continuous supply with electrical energy

A system for detecting a state of a current collector of an electrically driven vehicle includes a video camera device for digitally recording images of the current collector and an image-evaluating device for the data evaluation of the image recordings. The current collector has optically detectable markings, the position and/or shape and/or surface area and/or color of which can be detected by the image-evaluating device in an automated manner. A system that makes the automatic state detection faster and more reliable is thereby provided.

System for detecting the state of a current collector

A vehicle has an electric or hybrid-electric traction drive supported by an ungrounded vehicle frame. The vehicle also has a current collector, which can be electrically connected to the traction drive and which can be brought in galvanic contact with a contact line of a grounded contact-line system to supply traction energy. The vehicle contains an electrical protection system for avoiding dangerous contact voltages on the vehicle frame or on a vehicle part connected to the vehicle frame in a conductive manner. The protection system has a first protection stage, a second protection stage, and a switching element, by which the protection system can be switched between the first and the second protection stages. The first protection stage provides greater safety from dangerous contact voltages than the second protection stage. Thus, a protection system can be provided which provides sufficient safety in all operating states of the vehicle.

Protection device for a vehicle for preventing contact voltages

A transportation system with a non-rail-bound, electrically or diesel-electrically driven vehicle, has a two-pole overhead conductor system with contact wires forming supply and return conductors. The vehicle has a current collector for the supply of electrical energy through sliding contact with the contact wires. A video detector on the vehicle determines a position of the contact wires relative to the vehicle. Marking elements mark the position of the contact wires. The video detector is oriented for taking video images of the marking elements, and an evaluation unit recognizes from a recorded video image whether contact wires are present above the vehicle and, when they are present, determines their position relative to the vehicle. Through the improved recognition of the position of the vehicle relative to the overhead conductor the operational safety of the transportation system is improved.

Transportation system with a non-rail-bound vehicle to be supplied with electrical energy through an overhead conductor system

A non-rail-bound vehicle, in particular a truck, includes a current collector for supplying electric energy from a two-pole overhead conductor. A rocker can be vertically lifted or lowered by a rocking movement of a support extension arm about horizontal tilting axes of lower hinge assemblies and can be laterally displaced by a tilting movement of a support extension arm about vertical pivot axes of the lower hinge assemblies. The lower hinge assemblies are supported on a lifting device which is connected to a vehicle frame of the vehicle and through which the current collector can be vertically moved between a lower parked position and an upper operating position. In this manner, overhead conductors with an extended height range can be contacted without the current collector influencing the entire length of the vehicle.

Non-rail-bound vehicle

A non-track-bound vehicle operates on a route electrified by an overhead contact system. The vehicle has a current collector for energy transfer between the vehicle and an overhead cable. It has a lowering mechanism for the transfer of the current collector from an upright operational position in which the current collector is in sliding contact with the contact wires into a lowered neutral position in which the current collector is arranged within a vehicle clearance profile. An actuating element is provided for the simultaneous activation of the lowering mechanism and an additional vehicle device. The activation of the actuating element is intended in a driving situation requiring the lowering of the current collector. The operation of non-track-bound vehicles is safer even in critical driving situations, such as for example, maneuvers to avoid or overtake other vehicles at high speed.

Non-track-bound vehicle

A non-rail bound vehicle, in particular a commercial vehicle or a bus, has a current collector for feeding electrical energy from a two-pole overhead line. The contact wires of the overhead line are configured as forward and return conductors, and each can be contacted by at least one contact strip of the current collector. Due to the fact that the current collector is provided with two support extension arms, which are tiltably and rotatably hinged to both the vehicle and a rocker bearing the contact strips such that the rocker can be both raised and lowered and also can be moved transversely to the direction of travel, the current collector can be safely coupled to and decoupled from the contact wires, even at higher driving speeds of the vehicle. Furthermore, lateral inaccuracies with respect to a lane while steering the vehicle can be permanently compensated for by the current collector.

A method for monitoring a system, in which a plurality of acoustic images are recorded and compared at defined intervals of time over a period of time extending several weeks. A large system can be monitored reliably and with little complexity if the acoustic images each contain a plurality of acoustic image areas which are arranged in a spatially different manner, and, between respective recordings of the image areas of an acoustic image, an acoustic sensor is aligned with an image area, which is to be recorded, of a next image area by being moved.

Method and apparatus for monitoring a system

A method is provided for weighing a series of mail pieces such as letters, flats or a mixture thereof, that are being conveyed through a weighing module. Each mail piece has a length which falls within a range bounded by a maximum length and a minimum length. The mail pieces are conveyed through the weighing module at a substantially constant speed while maintaining a minimum gap between successive mail pieces as the mail pieces pass through the weighing module. The weight of each mail piece is measured during a measurement time when that mail piece is the only mail piece moving on the scale. The scale is sized so that measurement times for mail pieces between the maximum and minimum lengths will vary.

Method for weighing mail pieces

Method and device for removing flat packages from a pile

The invention relates to a method for controlling an apparatus for doffing flat shipments at a controllable doffing speed that delivers the shipments at constant speed to driven conveyor belts. According to the invention, the speed at which the shipment to be doffed must be transported, from the time it reaches a first sensor for detecting the shipments until it reaches a corresponding second sensor in order to achieve a desired gap is ascertained. The first sensor is located at the position at which the shipments ( &prime;) to be doffed have reached a fixed mean doffing speed, and the second sensor is located at the point of takeover by the conveyor belts.

Method for controlling a device used to remove packages from a pile

A method for controlling an intermediate stacking device for flat shipments, in particular in letter sorting facilities, comprising a stacking device (SR) on a movable stacking cart (SW), a bottom transporting belt (UB) on which the shipments are positioned crosswise to the belt movement direction, and a separating device with a withdrawal means (AR), as well as a shipment sensor (FH,), which detects the shipments at the separating device. In order to correct without problems a slanted position of the shipment stack at the separating device, the normal operational control of the intermediate stacking device becomes invalid if a predetermined time interval during which no shipments are detected at the withdrawal means (AR) is exceeded, the supply of shipments to the intermediate stacking device is interrupted, the bottom transporting belt (UB) is stopped, and the stacking cart (SW) is put into motion in the direction of the separating device. If a shipment is once more detected at the withdrawal means and taking into account a preferably linearly dependent lag time that depends on the measured filling level of the intermediate stacking device, the compression movement of the stacking cart (SW) is stopped, the supply of shipments to the intermediate stacking device is resumed again and the drives for bottom transporting belt (UB) and stacking cart (SW) are again controlled in the normal operation.

Method for controlling an intermediate stacking device for flat shipments

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Berlin, Germany

Frank Gerstenberg