JP5402272B2 - Vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to position measurement by maintenance of overhead lines, tracks, and the like, and more particularly to a vehicle position measurement apparatus for electric railway maintenance that measures the position of an electric railway vehicle by image processing.

  As electric railway facilities, there are mainly overhead lines (hereinafter referred to as trolley lines) and tracks (hereinafter referred to as rails). Each of these is an important maintenance facility for operating the railway.

  The trolley line contacts the current collector every time the electric railway vehicle passes while operating the electric railway vehicle. For this reason, the trolley wire gradually wears out, and if it is not replaced, it may eventually break and cause an accident. In addition, the rails are bent, distorted, scratched, worn, etc. due to train operation, and if these progresses are left unattended, there is a risk of causing an accident such as derailment of an electric railway vehicle.

  Because of this, in order to quickly grasp the point of caution due to wear on the trolley wire or rail, and to respond to this, the position of the point of caution on the trolley wire or rail (for example, how many kilometers you traveled from a certain point) It is an important matter from the viewpoint of maintenance and management to specify information such as the location that requires attention at the location.

  Currently, when performing maintenance on equipment such as trolley wires and rails, maintenance-only vehicles and track-and-rail vehicles are used, and if a point requiring attention is detected as a result of inspection, the vehicle when the data was acquired The position of a point requiring attention is estimated from the position of (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  Here, as a method for specifying the position of the vehicle, conventionally, for example, there is a method using an automatic train control device (ATC) or a rotary encoder, and each has the following characteristics.

  The automatic train control device controls the position and speed of the train, and is originally a system for driving the vehicle, but this automatic train control device communicates information on the train position and speed to the outside. A mechanism is in place. Therefore, when the position of the vehicle is specified using the automatic train control device, the position of the maintenance-only vehicle is specified using a mechanism that communicates with the outside of the automatic train control device (for example, Patent Document 2). reference).

  In addition, when specifying the position of the vehicle using a rotary encoder, based on the rotation speed of the wheel obtained by the rotary encoder, a certain point is set as a reference position from the rotation speed of the wheel and the circumference of the wheel. The travel distance of the vehicle is obtained (see, for example, Patent Document 3).

JP 2008-89523 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-248412 JP 2004-17700 A

  However, when using the above-described automatic train control device, in addition to installing transmission / reception equipment on the vehicle side, it is necessary to install transmission / reception devices at regular intervals on the rail side, so it is installed in a long-distance line section In such a case, there is a problem that the number is large and the cost is high.

  Also, because the rotary encoder is configured to measure the travel distance by counting the rotation angle of the wheel, the wheel is rotating while the train is not progressing due to braking, traveling on a slope, etc., or There is a problem in that it may become difficult to specify the position of a point requiring attention due to an incremental increase in locally generated errors such as the train moving while the wheel is not rotating due to the slip of the wheel. there were.

  For these Patent Documents 1 to 3, a line sensor camera is installed on the roof of the vehicle, and an image near the trolley line photographed by this line sensor camera is subjected to image processing (template matching, edge detection, etc.) to detect hangers. It is conceivable to eliminate the error as described above by specifying the relationship between the traveling position of the vehicle and the passing time based on the time when the hanger is photographed.

  However, in such a method, if the hanger itself is slanted, or if the hanger is slanted on the screen, the hanger is used for matching with the template when detecting hanger by template matching. There is a possibility that the accuracy of detection may be reduced, and when detecting hangers by edge detection, there is a possibility that the accuracy of hanger detection may be reduced because the vertical edge is weakened. was there.

  In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to provide an electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus that can specify the relationship between the traveling position of the vehicle and the passage time with high accuracy.

A vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance according to a first invention for solving the above-mentioned problems is a line sensor camera that photographs a hanger that is installed at equal intervals and supports a trolley wire from the roof of the vehicle, An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that includes an image processing unit that is installed inside a vehicle and analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera, and identifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series; a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image; and time recording means for the hanger detected by the detecting means is said hanger to record the time taken by the line sensor camera, the Have a recording device that stores time, the hanger detecting means, a Hough transform means for detecting a straight line from the point sequence on the line sensor image, preset of the straight lines detected by the Hough transform means Hanger recognition means for detecting the straight line having an angle with respect to a reference direction within a predetermined range and extracting an object constituting the straight line as the hanger .

Electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to a second invention for solving the aforementioned problem, a hanger for supporting the the equally spaced contact wire, the line sensor camera for photographing from the roof of the vehicle, the An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that includes an image processing unit that is installed inside a vehicle and analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera, and identifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series; a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image; A time recording means for recording a time when the hanger detected by the hanger detection means is photographed by the line sensor camera; and And a recording device that stores time, the hanger detecting means, create divides the line sensor image at every predetermined time, the relationship between within that region of the pixel position and the brightness for each divided region as a histogram And a histogram creation determination means for determining the presence or absence of the hanger for each region based on the characteristics of the histogram.

Third electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the invention for solving the aforementioned problem, a hanger for supporting the the equally spaced contact wire, the line sensor camera for photographing from the roof of the vehicle, the An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that includes an image processing unit that is installed inside a vehicle and analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera, and identifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series; a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image; A time recording means for recording a time when the hanger detected by the hanger detection means is photographed by the line sensor camera; and And a recording device that stores time, the hanger detecting means, said detecting the intersection between two straight lines in the line sensor image, the two when the intersection within a range set in advance is present twice It is a corner detection means for detecting a straight line connecting intersections as the hanger.

Fourth electrical railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the invention for solving the aforementioned problem, a hanger for supporting the the equally spaced contact wire, the line sensor camera for photographing from the roof of the vehicle, the An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that includes an image processing unit that is installed inside a vehicle and analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera, and identifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series; a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image; A time recording means for recording a time when the hanger detected by the hanger detection means is photographed by the line sensor camera; and And a recording device that stores time, the hanger detecting means, a Hough transform means for detecting a straight line from the point sequence on the line sensor image, a preset comprising the straight lines detected by the Hough transform means Histogram creation means for creating a relationship between the pixel position and luminance in the time width area as a histogram, and hanger determination means for judging the presence or absence of the hanger in the area based on the characteristics of the histogram It is characterized by becoming.

According to a first electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the invention described above, a hanger for supporting the the equally spaced contact wire, the line sensor camera for photographing from the roof of the vehicle, the interior of the vehicle An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that includes an image processing unit that is installed and that analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera, and that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, the image processing unit A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals photographed by the line sensor camera in time series, a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image, and the hanger detecting means. and time recording means is detected the hanger records the time taken by the line sensor camera by, save the time Have a recording device, said hanger detecting means, a Hough transform means for detecting a straight line from the point sequence on the line sensor image, the angle with respect to the reference direction set in advance among the straight lines detected by the Hough transform means Is formed by hanger recognition means for detecting the straight line within a predetermined range and extracting an object constituting the straight line as the hanger, so that the position of the hanger can be determined by processing the image taken by the line sensor camera. It is possible to easily measure and specify the traveling position of a maintenance vehicle or the like.

  Specifically, since the hanger is detected without contact, high-speed operation is possible, and a long distance section can be measured in a short time. Furthermore, by synchronizing the time when the hanger is detected and the time when the point of interest is detected by a trolley wire measuring means such as an existing equipment maintenance system, the correlation between the position of the hanger and the position of the point of interest is accurately obtained. be able to. In addition, because the hanger is detected in a non-contact manner due to the structure of the apparatus, there is no possibility of the apparatus colliding with an existing structure, and measurement is basically possible in all sections.

  In addition, because the hanger is detected from the image taken by one line sensor camera, it is not necessary to add a large facility on the ground side as compared with the case where the position of the point requiring attention is specified using ATC. Since independent detection processing is performed for each line sensor image, a partially generated error is not accumulated as compared with a case where a point requiring attention is specified using a rotary encoder.

Further , the hanger detecting means detects a straight line from the point sequence on the line sensor image, and a straight line whose angle with respect to a preset reference direction is within a predetermined range among the straight lines detected by the Hough converting means. Because it consists of hanger recognition means that detects and extracts the objects that make up this straight line as a hanger, template matching or edge detection even when the hanger itself is slanted or an image is acquired diagonally Thus, the hanger can be detected with higher accuracy than the method of detecting the hanger.

According to the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance according to the second aspect of the invention, a line sensor camera that photographs the hanger that is installed at equal intervals and supports the trolley wire from the roof of the vehicle, and the inside of the vehicle An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that includes an image processing unit that is installed and that analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera, and that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, the image processing unit A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals photographed by the line sensor camera in time series, a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image, and the hanger detecting means. A time recording means for recording a time when the hanger detected by the line sensor camera is photographed, and storing the time And a recording device, said hanger detecting means, divides the line sensor image at every predetermined time, create a relationship between within that region of the pixel position and luminance as a histogram for each divided region, the histogram Since it is a histogram creation determination means for determining the presence or absence of the hanger for each region based on the characteristics of the above, even when the hanger itself is slanted or when an image is acquired diagonally, template matching or Compared with the method of detecting the hanger by edge detection, the hanger can be detected with high accuracy.

According to the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance according to the third aspect of the invention, a line sensor camera that photographs the hanger that is installed at equal intervals and supports the trolley wire from the roof of the vehicle, and the inside of the vehicle An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that includes an image processing unit that is installed and that analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera, and that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, the image processing unit A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals photographed by the line sensor camera in time series, a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image, and the hanger detecting means. A time recording means for recording a time when the hanger detected by the line sensor camera is photographed, and storing the time And a recording device, said hanger detecting means, said detecting the intersection between two straight lines in the line sensor image, the intersection within the preset connecting the two intersections if present twice linear Corner detection means for detecting the hanger as a hanger, even when the hanger itself is slanted or when an image is acquired diagonally, compared to a method of detecting a hanger by template matching or edge detection. The hanger can be detected with high accuracy.

According to the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance according to the fourth aspect of the invention, a line sensor camera that photographs the hanger that is installed at equal intervals and supports the trolley wire from the roof of the vehicle, and the inside of the vehicle An electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring device that includes an image processing unit that is installed and that analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera, and that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time, the image processing unit A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals photographed by the line sensor camera in time series, a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image, and the hanger detecting means. A time recording means for recording a time when the hanger detected by the line sensor camera is photographed, and storing the time And a recording device, said hanger detecting means, a Hough transform means for detecting a straight line from the point sequence on the line sensor image, the region of the preset time width containing the straight line detected by the Hough transform means In contrast, the image forming apparatus includes a histogram creating unit that creates a relationship between the pixel position in the region and the luminance as a histogram, and a hanger determining unit that determines the presence or absence of the hanger in the region based on the characteristics of the histogram. In addition to the effects of the first to third inventions, the possibility of erroneously detecting a structure other than the hanger can be prevented.

It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of installation of the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a vehicle position specifying device according to a first embodiment of the present invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of the line sensor image acquired in Example 1 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the result of having performed the straight line detection process by Hough transformation with respect to the line sensor image shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process in the vehicle position specification apparatus which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the vehicle position specification apparatus which concerns on Example 2 of this invention. FIG. 7A is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of setting divided areas in the second embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 7B is a histogram obtained from an area where no hanger is present in FIG. 7A, and FIG. Is a histogram obtained from the area where the hanger in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process by the vehicle position specification apparatus which concerns on Example 2 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the vehicle position specification apparatus which concerns on Example 3 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example which extracts a corner from the line sensor image in Example 3 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process by the vehicle position specification apparatus which concerns on Example 3 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the vehicle position specification apparatus which concerns on Example 4 of this invention. FIG. 13A is an explanatory diagram showing an example of region setting in the fourth embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 13B is a histogram obtained from the region where the hanger in FIG. 13A exists, and FIG. It is a histogram obtained from the area | region where structures other than the hanger of Fig.13 (a) exist. It is a flowchart which shows the process by the vehicle position specification apparatus which concerns on Example 4 of this invention.

  Hereinafter, the details of the vehicle position measuring apparatus for electric railway maintenance by image processing according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  A first embodiment of the vehicle position specifying device according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is an explanatory view showing an installation example of a vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance according to the present embodiment, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the vehicle position specifying device according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the line sensor image acquired in FIG. 4, FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a result of performing straight line detection processing by Hough transform on the line sensor image shown in FIG. 2, and FIG. 5 is a vehicle according to the present embodiment It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process in a position specification apparatus.

  As shown in FIG. 1, in this embodiment, the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus includes a line sensor camera 2 installed on the roof of the vehicle 1 and an image processing unit 3 installed inside the vehicle 1. I have. Although not shown, in this embodiment, it is assumed that trolley wire wear measuring means for acquiring the wear condition of the trolley wire 4 together with the measurement time is installed on the roof of the vehicle 1.

  In addition, the trolley wire 4 is supported by a plurality of hangers 6 installed at substantially equal intervals on the overhead wire 5.

  The line sensor camera 2 is installed on the side of the roof of the vehicle 1, the installation angle and the elevation angle so that the optical axis thereof is orthogonal to the traveling direction of the vehicle 1, and one hanger 6 fits in the field of view. Is set. Here, an alternate long and short dash line in FIG. 1 indicates a photographing line.

  The image processing unit 3 analyzes an image acquired by the line sensor camera 2 and obtains the traveling position of the vehicle 1, and includes an arithmetic device 31 and a recording device 32.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the arithmetic unit 31 includes a line sensor image creation unit 31a as a line sensor image creation unit, a Hough conversion unit 31b as a Hough conversion unit, a hanger recognition unit 31c as a hanger recognition unit, and a time recording unit. A time recording unit 31d and memories M1 and M2 are provided.

  The line sensor image creation unit 31a creates a line sensor image I (see FIG. 3) in which image signals (scanning line luminance signals) input from the line sensor camera 2 are arranged in time series. In the example illustrated in FIG. 3, the trolley line 4, the overhead line 5, and the three hangers 6 are displayed in the line sensor image I. In FIG. 3, the trolley line 4, the overhead line 5, and the hanger 6 are drawn in white, but actually, for example, in the daytime, the trolley line 4, the overhead line 5, and the hanger 6 are black against a white background. Is displayed. The line sensor image I is stored in the recording device 32 via the memory M2.

  The Hough transform unit 31b receives parameters input from the recording device 32 with respect to the line sensor image I input from the line sensor image creation unit 31a (here, a threshold value used when detecting a straight line by Hough transform). Hough transform is performed using. Thereby, a straight line L is extracted from the point sequence in the line sensor image I as shown in FIG.

In the example shown in FIG. 4, three hangers 6 are detected as straight lines L _{11 to} L ₁₃ , the overhead wire 5 is detected as a straight line L ₁₄ , and the trolley wire 4 is detected as a straight line L ₁₅ . Hereinafter, when the straight lines detected by the Hough transform unit 31b are collectively referred to as a straight line L. Also, as shown in FIG. 4, a line sensor image I from which a straight line has been extracted by the Hough transform is referred to as a Hough transform image I _H. The Hough converted image I _H is sent to the hanger recognition unit 31c via the memory M2.

The hanger recognizing unit 31c is based on the parameters input from the recording device 32 (here, a reference angle θ _B described later) and the Hough converted image I _H input from the Hough converting unit 31b. 3 is monitored with respect to a predetermined direction (horizontal direction in FIG. 4) as a reference direction, and this inclination θ is a preset reference angle (an angle enclosed by a broken line in FIG. 3). ) If θ _B or more, it is detected as a hanger 6.

In the example shown in FIG. 4, straight lines L ₁₁ , L ₁₂ , and L ₁₃ having inclinations θ ₁₁ , θ ₁₂ , and θ ₁₃ that are greater than or equal to the reference angle θ _{B with} respect to the horizontal direction are detected as straight lines indicating the hanger 6, while Straight lines L ₁₄ and L ₁₅ having inclinations θ ₁₄ and θ ₁₅ less than the reference angle θ _{B with} respect to the direction are regarded as straight lines indicating structures other than the hanger 6. Detection information of the hanger 6 detected by the hanger recognition unit 31c is sent as a hanger detection flag to the time recording unit 31d via the memory M2.

  The time recording unit 31d records the time t when the hanger 6 detected by the hanger recognition unit 31c is photographed by the line sensor 2 based on the hanger detection flag input from the hanger recognition unit 31c. The shooting time t of the hanger 6 output from the time recording unit 31d is stored in the recording device 32 via the memory M2.

  The memories M1 and M2 temporarily store various data. Various data are stored in the recording device 32.

  Hereinafter, the processing in the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment will be briefly described with reference to FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 5, in the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment, a line sensor image I is first created based on an image signal input from the line sensor 2 in the line sensor image creation unit 31a. Then (step P1), the Hough conversion unit 31b performs Hough conversion on the line sensor image I (step P2), and the straight line L in the line sensor image I is extracted (step P3).

Subsequently, the hanger recognition unit 31c determines whether or not the inclination θ of the straight line L extracted in Step P3 has an inclination equal to or larger than the reference angle θ _B with respect to the reference direction (Step P4). As a result of the determination, if the inclination θ of the straight line L is equal to or larger than the reference angle θ _B (YES), the straight line L is regarded as indicating the hanger 6 and the process proceeds to Step P5. On the other hand, if the inclination θ of the straight line L is less than the reference angle θ _B (NO), it is assumed that the straight line L indicates a structure other than the hanger 6 and the process returns to Step P3.

In step P5, the time recording unit 31d records the time t at which the straight line L, which is considered to indicate the hanger 6 in step P4, is recorded, and subsequently, the inclination θ is not measured in the Hough transform image I _H. It is determined whether or not the straight line L remains (step P6). As a result of the determination, if there remains no straight line L for which the inclination θ is not measured (NO), the process for one line sensor image I is terminated. On the other hand, if the straight line L for which the inclination θ is not measured remains (YES), the process returns to Step P4.
The processes in steps P1 to P6 are performed on all line sensor images I.

  According to the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment configured as described above, the position of the hanger 6 can be easily measured by analyzing the image taken by the line sensor camera 2, and the maintenance vehicle can be measured. It is possible to specify a traveling position such as.

  Moreover, since the hanger 6 is detected in a non-contact manner, high-speed operation is possible, and a long distance section can be measured in a short time. Further, by synchronizing the time at which the hanger 6 is detected and the time at which the point of interest is detected by a trolley wire measuring means such as an existing equipment maintenance system, the correlation between the position of the hanger 6 and the position of the point of interest is obtained. It can be determined accurately. Moreover, since the hanger 6 is detected in a non-contact manner due to the structure of the apparatus, there is no possibility that the apparatus collides with an existing structure, and measurement is basically possible in all sections.

  Moreover, since the hanger 6 is detected from the image photographed by one line sensor camera 2, it is not necessary to add a large facility on the ground side as compared with the case where the position of a point requiring attention is specified using the ATC. In addition, since independent detection processing is performed for each line sensor image I, errors that are partially generated are not accumulated as compared with the case where a point requiring attention is specified using a rotary encoder.

Also, if the hanger 6 itself has been stretched at an angle, or even when the hanger 6 is photographed obliquely on the line sensor image I, the inclination with respect to the reference direction theta is the reference angle theta _B or more straight lines L hanger 6, the hanger 6 can be detected with higher accuracy than the method of detecting the hanger 6 by template matching or edge detection.

  A second embodiment of the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of the vehicle position specifying device according to the present embodiment, FIG. 7A is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of a line sensor image acquired in the present embodiment, and FIG. 7A shows an example of a histogram corresponding to the region A, FIG. 7C shows another example of the histogram corresponding to the region A of FIG. 7A, and FIG. 8 shows processing by the vehicle position specifying device according to this embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the flow.

  In this embodiment, a histogram creation determination unit 31e as a histogram creation determination unit shown in FIG. 6 is used instead of the Hough conversion unit 31b and the hanger recognition unit 31c of the first embodiment. Other configurations are substantially the same as those described in the first embodiment, and hereinafter, processing units having the same functions are denoted by the same reference numerals, and redundant description is omitted, and different points will be mainly described.

  As shown in FIG. 6, in this embodiment, the arithmetic device 31 includes a line sensor image creation unit 31a, a histogram creation determination unit 31e, and a time recording unit 31d.

  The histogram creation determination unit 31e applies the parameters input from the recording device 32 to the line sensor image I input from the line sensor image generation unit 31a (here, the setting width of the region A described later, the hanger 6 from the histogram described later). The hanger 6 in the line sensor image I is detected using a threshold value used for detection.

Specifically, as shown in FIG. 7A, the line sensor image I is divided into areas A set at predetermined time intervals with respect to the line sensor image I, and the pixel position and luminance on the image are determined for each area A. Is created as a histogram. Here, since the trolley line 4 and the overhead line 5 are always included in the area A, the histogram shows luminance values (V) corresponding to the trolley line 4 and the overhead line 5 as shown in FIGS. _T , V _C ) appears as two chevron shapes.

Furthermore, in the case where the hanger 6 does not exist (for example, the area A1 in FIG. 7A), only two luminance values V _T and V _C are displayed as shown in FIG. 7B. In the case where the hanger 6 exists (for example, the region A2 in FIG. 7A), the luminance value V _H is between the two luminance values V _T and V _C as shown in FIG. 7C. Is displayed. In the present embodiment, the hanger 6 is detected from the line sensor image I using this feature.

  The flow of processing by the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment will be briefly described below with reference to FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 8, in this embodiment, the line sensor image creating unit 31a first creates a line sensor image I based on the image signal input from the line sensor camera 2 (step P1), and subsequently creates a histogram. In the determination unit 31e, the relationship between the pixel position and the luminance is created as a histogram for each region A with respect to the line sensor image I (step P2), and the hanger 6 is included in the line sensor image I based on the characteristics of the created histogram. It is determined whether or not it exists (step P3).

  As a result of the determination, if it is determined that the hanger 6 exists in the area A (YES), the process proceeds to Step P4. On the other hand, when it is determined that the hanger 6 does not exist in the area A (NO), the process proceeds to Step P5.

In Step P4, the time t at which the hanger 6 detected in Step P3 is photographed is recorded in the time recording unit 31d, and the process proceeds to Step P5. In Step P5, it is determined whether or not the area A where the hanger 6 is detected is the last area A among the areas A set in one line sensor image I. As a result of the determination, if it is the last region A (YES), the processing for one line sensor image I is terminated. On the other hand, if it is not the last region A (NO), the process returns to Step P2.
The processes in steps P1 to P6 are performed on all line sensor images I.

  According to the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment configured as described above, in addition to the effects of the first embodiment, when the hanger 6 itself is slanted or on the line sensor image I Since the hanger 6 is detected based on the characteristics of the histogram obtained from the relationship between the pixel position and the brightness for each region set on the line sensor image I even when the hanger 6 is photographed obliquely, the template Compared with the method of detecting the hanger 6 by matching or edge detection, the hanger 6 can be detected with high accuracy.

  A third embodiment of the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of the vehicle position specifying device according to the present embodiment, FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of extracting a corner from a line sensor image in the present embodiment, and FIG. 11 illustrates a vehicle according to the present embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process by a position specification apparatus.

  In this embodiment, a corner detection unit 31f as a corner detection unit shown in FIG. 9 is used instead of the Hough conversion unit 31b and the hanger recognition unit 31c of the first embodiment. Other configurations are substantially the same as those described in the first embodiment, and hereinafter, processing units having the same functions are denoted by the same reference numerals, and redundant description is omitted, and different points will be mainly described.

  As shown in FIG. 9, in the present embodiment, the arithmetic device 31 is configured to include a line sensor image creation unit 31a, a corner detection unit 31f, and a time recording unit 31d.

  The corner detection unit 31f receives parameters input from the recording device 32 with respect to the line sensor image I input from the line sensor image creation unit 31a (here, a threshold value for detecting a corner C, which will be described later, a corner C). The hanger 6 in the line sensor image I is detected using a threshold value or the like for determining whether or not is a pair.

Specifically, the intersection between the two straight lines on the line sensor image I as shown in FIG. 10, i.e., a trolley wire 4 or messenger wire 5 in Figure 10, hanger 6 and corner C ₁ a portion that is connected, C ₂ , C ₃ , C ₄ (hereinafter collectively referred to as corner C), and two corners within the predetermined time range (corner C ₁ and C ₃ , corner C ₂ and C _{4 in} FIG. 10). ) straight L ₃₁ connecting, L ₃₂ (hereinafter, may be collectively detects referred to as straight line L) as a hanger 6. Information on the detected hanger 6 is sent as a hanger detection flag to the time recording unit 31d via the memory M2.

  Hereinafter, the flow of processing by the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment will be briefly described with reference to FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 11, in this embodiment, the line sensor image creating unit 31a first creates a line sensor image I based on the image signal input from the line sensor camera 2 (step P1), and then detects corners. The section 5f detects a corner C on the line sensor image I (step P2), and whether or not there are two detected corners C within a predetermined time range (in the present embodiment, substantially the same vertical on the line sensor image I). It is determined whether or not a corner C exists on the line (step P3).

As a result of the determination, if the corner C is detected as a pair (YES), the process proceeds to Step P4. On the other hand, if the corner C is not detected as a pair (NO), the process proceeds to step 5. In step P4, the time t at which the hanger 6 detected by the corner detection unit 5f is photographed in the time recording unit 31d is recorded, and then, whether another corner C existing in pairs remains on the line sensor image I or not. Is determined (step P5). As a result of the determination, if there is no remaining corner C existing as a pair (NO), the processing for one line sensor image I is terminated. On the other hand, if there remains a corner C existing as a pair (YES), the process returns to Step P3.
The processes in steps P1 to P5 are performed on all line sensor images I.

  According to the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment configured as described above, in addition to the effects of the first embodiment, when the hanger 6 itself is slanted or on the line sensor image I Even if the hanger 6 is photographed obliquely, the hanger 6 is detected based on whether or not the corner C extracted from the line sensor image I exists in a pair, so that the hanger 6 is detected by template matching or edge detection. The hanger 6 can be detected with higher accuracy than the method of detecting the hanger 6.

  A fourth embodiment of the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of the vehicle position specifying device according to the present embodiment, FIG. 13A is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of setting a region in the present embodiment, and FIG. 13B is FIG. 13A. FIG. 13C is another histogram corresponding to the region B of FIG. 13A, and FIG. 14 is a flowchart showing processing by the vehicle position specifying device according to this embodiment.

  In the present embodiment, a histogram creation unit 31g as a histogram creation unit and a hanger judgment unit 31h as a hanger judgment unit shown in FIG. 12 are added to the arithmetic unit 31 shown in the first embodiment. Other configurations are substantially the same as those described in the first embodiment, and hereinafter, processing units having the same functions are denoted by the same reference numerals, and redundant description is omitted, and different points will be mainly described.

  As shown in FIG. 12, in the present embodiment, the arithmetic unit 31 includes a line sensor image creation unit 31a, a Hough conversion unit 31b, a histogram creation unit 31g, a hanger determination unit 31h, and a time recording unit 31d.

The histogram creation unit 31g detects the hanger 6 from the parameters input from the recording device 32 (here, the setting width of the region B described later, the histogram described later) with respect to the Hough transformed image I _H input from the Hough transform unit 31a. The hanger 6 in the Hough transform image I _H is detected using a threshold value used at the time.

Specifically, as shown in FIG. 13A, a region B having a predetermined width is formed at a position where a straight line L having an intersection angle equal to or larger than the reference angle θ _{B with} respect to the reference direction on the Hough transform image I _H is detected. For each region B, the relationship between the pixel position and the brightness is created as a histogram. The created histogram is sent to the hanger determination unit 31h via the memory M2.

The hanger determination unit 31h uses a parameter input from the recording device 32 (here, a threshold value used when detecting the hanger 6 from the histogram) with respect to the histogram input from the histogram creation unit 31g. It is determined whether or not L is a straight line obtained from the hanger 6. Since the trolley line 4 and the overhead line 5 always exist in the region B, as shown in FIGS. 13B and 13C, the brightness values V _T and V corresponding to the trolley line 4 and the overhead line 5 are displayed on the histogram. _{When C has} two chevron shapes, and there is a hanger 6 in the region B, the luminance value V _T and V _C are connected to each other as shown in FIG. The value V _H is displayed.

On the other hand, when a structure other than the hanger 6 (for example, a utility pole) 7 is photographed in the area B, as shown in FIG. 13C, it crosses the two peaks by the luminance values V _T and V _C. The brightness value V _K is displayed on the screen. The hanger determination unit 31h differentiates between the hanger 6 and noise due to the other structures 7 by using the difference between the two characteristics V _H and V _K. Information on the presence or absence of the hanger 6 detected by the hanger determination unit 31h is sent as a hanger detection flag to the time recording unit 31d via the memory M2.

  Hereinafter, based on FIG. 14, the flow of processing by the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment will be briefly described.

  As shown in FIG. 14, in the present embodiment, the line sensor image creating unit 31a first creates the line sensor image I based on the image signal input from the line sensor camera 2 (step P1), and then the Hough transform. The part 31b performs Hough transform on the line sensor image I (step P2), and extracts a straight line L in the line sensor image I (step P3).

Subsequently, the inclination θ of the straight line L extracted from the line sensor image I in step P3 in the Hough transform unit 31b is equal to or larger than a reference angle θ _B set in advance with respect to the reference direction (horizontal direction in this embodiment). (Step P4). As a result of the determination, if the inclination θ is equal to or larger than the reference angle θ _B (YES), the process proceeds to Step P5. On the other hand, if the inclination θ is less than the reference angle θ _B (NO), the process returns to Step P3.

In step P5, the region B is set with a time width set in advance so as to include the straight line L in which the inclination θ is determined to be equal to or larger than the reference angle θ _B in step P4 in the histogram creating unit 31g. A relationship between position and luminance is created as a histogram.

  Subsequently, the hanger determination unit 31h determines whether or not the feature of the histogram created in step P5 indicates the structure 7 other than the hanger 6 (step P6). As a result of the determination, if the histogram feature corresponding to the region B indicates the hanger 6 (NO), the process proceeds to Step P7. On the other hand, when the feature of the histogram corresponding to the region B indicates the structure 7 other than the hanger 6 (YES), the process proceeds to Step P8.

In step P7, the time t at which the hanger 6 detected in step P6 was photographed is recorded in the time recording unit 31d, and the process proceeds to step P8. In Step P8, it is determined whether or not there is another straight line L on the line sensor image I. If there is no other straight line L on the line sensor image I as a result of the determination (NO), the processing for one line sensor image I is terminated. On the other hand, if there is another straight line L on the line sensor image I (YES), the process returns to Step P4.
The processes in steps P1 to P8 are performed on all line sensor images I.

  According to the electric railway maintenance vehicle position measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment configured as described above, in addition to the effects of the first to third embodiments, the structure 7 other than the hanger 6 is mistakenly attached to the hanger 6. Can be prevented from being detected.

  The present invention can be applied to position measurement by maintenance such as overhead lines and tracks, and is particularly suitable for application to an electric railway maintenance vehicle position measurement device that measures the position of an electric railway vehicle by image processing.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Vehicle, 2 ... Line sensor camera, 3 ... Image processing part, 31 ... Arithmetic apparatus, 32 ... Recording apparatus, 31a ... Line sensor image preparation part, 31b ... Hough conversion part, 31c ... Hanger recognition part, 31d ... Time recording Part 31e ... histogram creation determination part 31f ... corner detection part 31g ... histogram creation part 31h ... hanger judgment part 4 ... trolley wire 5 ... overhead wire 6 ... hanger 7 ... structure, A ... area, B ... area, C ... corner, I ... line sensor image, L ... straight line, [theta] _B ... reference angle, [theta] ... angle

Claims (4)

A line sensor camera that shoots hangers installed at equal intervals to support a trolley line from the roof of the vehicle, and an image processing unit that is installed inside the vehicle and analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera. A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time,
A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series; a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image; possess a time recording means for the hanger detected by the detecting means is said hanger to record the time taken by the line sensor camera and a recording device for storing the time,
The hanger detecting means detects a straight line from a point sequence on the line sensor image, and an angle with respect to a preset reference direction among the straight lines detected by the Hough converting means is within a predetermined range. A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance , comprising hanger recognition means for detecting the straight line and extracting an object constituting the straight line as the hanger . A line sensor camera that shoots hangers installed at equal intervals to support a trolley line from the roof of the vehicle, and an image processing unit that is installed inside the vehicle and analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera. A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time,
A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series; a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image; A time recording means for recording the time when the hanger detected by the hanger detection means is taken by the line sensor camera; and a recording device for storing the time.
The hanger detection means divides the line sensor image every predetermined time, creates a relationship between the pixel position and the luminance in the area for each divided area as a histogram, and the area based on the characteristics of the histogram A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance , characterized in that it is a histogram creation judging means for judging the presence or absence of the hanger for each. A line sensor camera that shoots hangers installed at equal intervals to support a trolley line from the roof of the vehicle, and an image processing unit that is installed inside the vehicle and analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera. A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time,
A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series; a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image; A time recording means for recording the time when the hanger detected by the hanger detection means is taken by the line sensor camera; and a recording device for storing the time.
The hanger detection means detects an intersection between two straight lines in the line sensor image, and when there are two intersections within a preset range, a corner that detects a straight line connecting the two intersections as the hanger A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance , characterized by being a detecting means. A line sensor camera that shoots hangers installed at equal intervals to support a trolley line from the roof of the vehicle, and an image processing unit that is installed inside the vehicle and analyzes an image obtained by the line sensor camera. A vehicle position measuring device for electric railway maintenance that specifies a relationship between a traveling position of the vehicle and a passage time,
A line sensor image creating means for creating a line sensor image by arranging the image signals taken by the line sensor camera in time series; a hanger detecting means for detecting a hanger in the line sensor image; A time recording means for recording the time when the hanger detected by the hanger detection means is taken by the line sensor camera; and a recording device for storing the time.
The hanger detecting means detects a straight line from a point sequence on the line sensor image, and a predetermined time width area including the straight line detected by the Hough converting means is within the area. An electric railway maintenance vehicle comprising: a histogram creating means for creating a relationship between a pixel position and luminance as a histogram; and a hanger judging means for judging the presence or absence of the hanger in the region based on the characteristics of the histogram. Position measuring device .

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