Other

Adtran Gmbh

John Morgan Thorington, Iii

Joseph Edward Haring

Dwight Edwin Wright

Dennis B Mc Mahan

Mark D Nevle

An invention is presented that expedites cause, fault and liability litigation of rail-highway crossing mishaps by providing a digital audio and video record of the events at the crossing as the locomotive or rail vehicle approaches and passes through the intersection. The electrical system components are located on and within the locomotive and can be powered exclusively by resources available from the locomotive. In addition, the invention may automatically and spontaneously inspect the operational status of the rail-highway crossing gate by capturing and processing the digital images of the gate by computational methods programmed in the locomotive's on-board computer. Alternatively, the images or video could be transmitted to a remote station for processing or inspection. If it is determined that the gate is malfunctioning, the computer may tag the digital image with relevant information from positioning equipment such as a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) and may transmit the identified image via satellite or other communications network to the command station for further review. Since the locomotive can power the electrical components of the system, simple mechanical interrupt devices may be used to activate and deactivate the system. This system is effectively secure from sabotage, vandalism and environmental deterioration.

Rail crossing video recorder and automated gate inspection

A transmission strobe clock signal control mechanism continuously monitors DTE data and transmission strobe clock signals used to strobe the DTE data onto a serial communication link, and automatically adjusts the phase of the transmission strobe clock signal in response to a misalignment between the two signals that exceeds acceptable limits. In a first embodiment, the DTE data signal is sampled by a high speed clock and clocked through a `data sample` shift register. Selected stages of the register, associated with a timing window that contains a transmission strobe clock signal edge, are coupled to an exclusive logic operation circuit, whose output indicates whether all of the data samples in the selected stages of the shift register are the same or not. If not, it is inferred that a data transition too close to the transmission strobe clock signal edge has occurred, necessitating an adjustment of the phase of the transmission strobe clock signal. In a second embodiment, a counter is clocked by high speed clock pulses between transitions in the transmission strobe clock signal and the data signal. A phase control circuit adjusts the phase of the transmission strobe clock signal in response to the number of high speed clock pulses counted not being between prescribed limits.

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Huntsville, AL, United States of America

John Morgan Thorington, Iii