Lockheed Martin Corporation

Richard A Allshouse

Robert B Groves, Jr

Charles W Morris

Gerhard F Meyer

Blaine R Groves

Joseph E Sanfilippo

Michael Lamana

Methods and systems that utilize radio frequency identification (RFID) tags mounted at trackside points of interest (POI) together with an RFID tag reader mounted on an end of train (EOT) car. The RFID tag reader and the RFID tags work together to provide information that can be used in a number of ways including, but not limited to, determining train integrity, determining a geographical location of the EOT car, and determine that the EOT car has cleared the trackside POI along the track.

Methods and systems of determining end of train location and clearance of trackside points of interest

A method for communicating safety critical train authorization under the conditions of limited communications capability is disclosed.

Method for managing vital train movements

A method for reducing delays in the receipt of high priority information in a transportation system is disclosed.

Method for maintaining vital guideway operation in high-demand areas

A method and system for reducing, in a centralized train control system, the portion of a centralized server application that is considered vital while not reducing the overall vitality of the system.

Method for isolation of vital functions in a centralized train control system

A dual-process system for the automatic generation of railway route-solution candidates and their concomitant movement authorities includes a central authority server that accepts dispatcher-provided start and end point data and time information and executes two different independent routing processes to provide two independently determined route-solution candidates. The two solutions are compared for consistency and, when consistent, the route with the minimum authority grants is selected as the solution for use by the locomotive or train.

System and method for the automatic generation of movement authority solutions in a rail system

A mechanism for maintaining configuration or other vital data outside of source code is disclosed. In accordance with the illustrative embodiment of the present invention, a data manager software component serves as an interface between an external configuration data store and one or more applications, processes, and threads. In contrast with techniques of the prior art, the illustrative embodiment does not suffer from the risk of undetected corruption of vital data, and therefore is especially advantageous in safety-critical systems.

Maintaining vitality of data in safety-critical systems

A method for delivering and maintaining mandatory directives data from a central office server to an on-board system. Mandatory directives include the enforceable train control data required for a train operating on controlled track. The method enables the on-board system and the central server to exchange data in a vital manner, in part by checking for any inconsistency between i) the on-board system's data as previously transmitted and ii) the required data as represented by both a transmitted set of data identifiers and an associated error correction code.

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Manassas, VA, United States of America

Richard A Allshouse