Ge Harris Railway Electronics, Inc.

James R Egnot

William Leonard Matheson

Alan L Polivka

Jeffrey K Baker

Robert E Heggestad

Alan A Polivka

William L Matheson

A method is provided for controlling movement of a plurality of vehicles over a guideway partitioned into a plurality of guideway blocks. The method uses a control system including an onboard computer (OBC) located on board each vehicle, at least one server for communicating with the OBCs, and a vehicle tracking system. The method including the steps of determining a composite block status for all guideway blocks, broadcasting the composite block status to the OBCs, and controlling movement of each vehicle based on the composite block status.

Method for advanced communication-based vehicle control

A method for performing an &ldquo;AND&rdquo; operation on two independent inputs in a fail-safe manner includes cascading two charge pumps to output a condition signal representing the &ldquo;AND'ed&rdquo; state of the inputs. Each independent input has an active state asserted by a waveform of predetermined frequency and duty cycle, and an inactive fail-safe state asserted by a zero voltage. The method includes supplying power to a first charge pump, supplying power from the first charge pump to a second charge pump, and supplying each of the independent inputs to one of the respective charge pumps. A condition signal is output using an output from the second charge pump. Additionally, the method verifies the correctness of the frequency and duty cycle of each independent input using a cross connection scheme. This method provides a high-power, low-loss, and low-cost electrical circuit for operating devices responding to specific voltages, for example, vital relays.

Vital &ldquo;AND&rdquo; gate apparatus and method

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Melbourne, FL, United States of America

James R Egnot