Video-based Monitoring of Pantographs on High Speed Tracks

Introduction

China’s fast-developing railways are about to reach a total length of 120,000 kilometers by 2020, with 18,000 km of them belonging to 200+ km/h high speed class. In the last few years, the construction of high-speed rails in China has reached its pinnacle, amid the increasing use of IT-based intelligent equipment and applications. Among them, the video-based monitoring systems have been prominent in improving China’s high-speed railway communications.  

Requirements

Modern high-speed trains are driven by electrical power via an apparatus called a pantograph, which is mounted on the roof of trains to collect power through sliding contact with an overhead power line. Hence, it is difficult to monitor their condition, and they can be easily influenced or obstructed by environmental factors during operation. Incidents such as entanglement by trash bags or loss of contact with the overhead wires will produce shorting or failure in the pantograph-catenary electric transmission system. So, real time video monitoring of pantographs is an effective proactive method for discovering problems, allowing plenty of time for repairs and maintenance.

Solutions

To meet the requirements of video-based monitoring for high-speed rails, Advantech provided our customer with MIO-5850 3.5”single board computers (SBC), which offer high performance and low power consumption, , and provides -40~85°C wide-range temperature support, delivering high reliability and ruggedness for long-term stable operation in harsh environments.

MIO-5850 product Features and Specifications

• Intel® E3800 series/J1900

• Onboard DDR3L & Emmc

• 3 GbE, USB3.0, CANBUS, TPM

• DC-in 12/24V, -40~85OC

Outstanding CPU Performance & Rich I/O Interface

The Advantech MIO-5850 is a 3.5”small-sized SBC adopting the Intel® E3800 series/J1900 processor, which provides high-performance computation with merely 15W of power consumption. MIO-5850 also provides rich I/O support, including 4COM, SATA, USB3.0, SMBus/I2C, 16 bit GPIO, full-size Mini PCIe/M.2 E Key, half size mSATA, 12-24V Power input, SIM Card holder, CANBUS with Isolation. USB 3.0 can be used for connecting line cameras or IP cameras. Meanwhile, the provision of MIOe high-speed expansion interface will allow users to flexibly expand interfaces for PCIe, SMBus, USB 2.0/3.0, LPC line-out, power supplies, or DP, all based on user needs. Advantech MIO-5850 is a high performance, highly reliable and flexible SBC product.

Patented High-performance Thermal Solution

MIO-5850 is supported by Advantech’s proprietary dynamic heat dissipation design, which uses an active copper/aluminum heat sink to dynamically conduct heat from chipsets for fast heat-dissipation which permits fanless system design. This patent-protected thermal solution has the following features:  

1. The heat sink can automatically adjust and moderate the attachment force between the device and heating chips--such as CPU processor—to maintain a close contact for more effective heat transfer while avoid causing arcing of the host board.
2. The Advantech-proprietary heat dissipation solution allows the use of smaller sized heat sinks delivering higher performance heat dissipation. If using the same size, the Advantech heat sink can lower more than 15°C of temperature compared with conventional heat sinks. Therefore, the Advantech host board, even when it is equipped with a CPU adopting Core i7-grade processor, can normally operate under -40~85°C temperatures for great long-term reliability.
3. Good vibration-resistant capability allows for long-term reliable operation in the railway environment which is prone to shock and vibration. For more info email to : [email protected]