American District Telegraph Company

Adt Security Systems, Inc.

Wabtec Holding Corporation

Lorne D O'Connor

Donald A Dingle

Bernard J Roy

Andre L Raymond

Richard Saylor

Philippe F Rioux

Sylvain Chartier

Philippe Rioux

Phillipe F Rioux

Andre Raymond

David Beaudion

Eric Valin

Stephen H Buckser

An electronic circuit arrangement for switching an electrical load disposed intermediate a power source and a ground includes a combinatorial logic block for receiving and processing at least one condition signal and for generating a first enabling signal. A biasing element generates a bias voltage upon receiving the first enabling signal. A first switch disposed intermediate the electrical load and the power source conducts upon application of the bias voltage enabling passage of an electrical supply current from the power source to the electrical load. A fail-safe circuit operation is achieved with the use of a microprocessor which generates a second enabling signal feeding into the biasing element and a second switch disposed intermediate the electrical load and the ground and which conducts upon application of a third enabling signal from the microprocessor thus enabling passage of the electrical supply current to ground. First and second feedback circuits monitor the state of the electrical load and provide status feedback to the microprocessor which is adapted for annunciating a fault condition.

Electronic circuit arrangement for switching an electrical load in a fail safe manner

A scene to be monitored (e.g., at a remote location or at a later time) is captured as a series of still images. These images are digitally encoded and stored in a digital memory for subsequent retrieval and viewing. If the scene includes a moving object (e.g., the side of a moving freight train), the images may be taken so that they are substantially mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive of the moving object. During playback, two or more adjacent images may be displayed adjacent to one another so that any feature partly present in adjacent images is visible as a whole. If the observer is at a location remote from the point at which the images are taken, various techniques can be used to facilitate transmission of the image information (preferably in digital form) via relatively low-cost transmission links such as voice-grade telephone lines.

Video observation systems

To speed the transmission of video images via transmission lines which can be of relatively low grade (e.g., voice-grade telephone transmission lines), each video image is encoded as a plurality of pixels, and the bits for each pixel are transmitted in order of significance (i.e., the most significant bits for all pixels are sent first, then the next most significant bits for all pixels are sent, and so on). At the receiver the image is displayed as it is received, and transmission is terminated as soon as the observer of the display has sufficient information about the image. Although many other applications are possible, the illustrative embodiment is a remote railroad freight car identification system.

Remote video observation systems

Method and apparatus are disclosed for optically scanning and recording information on railroad cars moving at high speed to facilitate identification of the cars.

Freight car identification method

A system for transmitting data from a transmitter to a receiver via an alternating current power line connecting the transmitter and receiver. The transmitter suppresses half cycles of the power signal, the suppressed half cycles being of alternating polarity. The data to be transmitted is represented by the time interval or number of power signal cycles between the suppressed half cycles.

Power line signalling system

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Laval, Canada

Lorne D O'Connor