Kustom Electronics, Inc.

The Kansas City Southern Railway Company

John L Aker

Fred M Berry

Rudolph D Spigarelli

William D Goodson

Donald L Geist

Freddie R Kittle

An electronic control system for automatically controlling the locomotive units of a multiple unit locomotive consist in a manner to maintain a selected speed of the consist with minimum fuel consumption. The control system includes a microprocessor and related hardware for each unit in the consist. Control and acknowledgement signals are transmitted among the locomotive units along a single train line wire to vary the output power of each unit among full power, half power and idle speed settings while maintaining the consist at the desired set speed. The hardware is arranged to direct the control and acknowledgement signals to the proper locomotive units while transmitting in both directions along the train line wire. The software for the microprocessors takes into account the acceleration and deceleration of the consist in adjusting the power output of the locomotive units.

Control device for multiple unit locomotive systems

A traffic radar device has a microprocessor controlled system for facilitating the Doppler signal processing. Related circuits enable the Doppler signal to be gathered on a digital basis and arrayed in the memory of the microprocessor unit. The array is then examined and by executing a predetermined algorithm, a decision is made as to whether or not a series of samples of Doppler signals, comprises within the array, represents a valid signal suitable for display as a number indicative of speed of a target vehicle. The microprocessor also controls a tracking filter system over the expected Doppler frequency range and has a duty factor modulation and tunable notch to facilitate the filter operation. The radar device includes a range control that limits the range of the detection of the target vehicle without affecting the detection of the platform vehicle speed. A hold mode is provided with respect to the radar device so that radiated RF energy is controlled to decrease the probability of detection by a traffic radar detector. The radar device is also capable of converting from one unit of measure to another without modification of the associated time base. As a further check on accuracy, the device includes the ability to determine the calibration of the time base within the radar system and to control the display based on the time base calibration. High speed lock onto a target vehicle speed is also provided along with the unique 'power-on' calibration sequence. x

Traffic radar device

A digital display doppler radar unit has a moving mode and a stationary mode. The incoming doppler signal, which in the moving mode, represents both speed of the radar platform and speed of an approaching target vehicle, is separated into two signal components by selective filtering. One component represents the sum of the ground speeds for the radar platform and approaching vehicles. A time base is generated by a crystal control means and the time base is utilized for correlating the received doppler signals, indicative of speed, with the time base. Each doppler signal component is converted to binary coded decimal (BCD) information and a digital counter counts the cycles of each reeived doppler signal and compares the count with an amount previously stored. Circuit means are provided to validate the received doppler signal, allowing their continual processing only after a preselected number of valid comparisons are made. The radar signal component representing the ground speed sum for the radar platform and the approaching target vehicle, and the component representing radar platform speed are combined. The radar platform speed is subtracted from the combined component, resulting in a digital count representing approaching target vehicle speed. In the stationary mode, there is no radar platform doppler pulses in the radar return and consequently, the returning pulses may be processed directly and no subtracting function is performed. Speeds corresponding to the valid received doppler signals are suitably displayed to indicate a speeding violation.

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Chanute, KS, United States of America

John L Aker