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Sensing and Monitoring Electric and Electromagnetic Quantities in Railways

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Electronic Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2022) | Viewed by 5879

Special Issue Editors

National Institute of Metrological Research (INRIM), 10135 Torino TO, Italy
Interests: measurement and instrumentation; development of voltage transducers for medium voltage applications; power quality definitions and measurements in railway systems; arcing phenomena; development of facilities and techniques for the characterization of high voltage/high current DC and AC transducers
DITEN, University of Genova, 16145 Genova, Italy
Interests: EMC applied to industrial, military, and transportation systems; power quality and interference; power system modeling and analysis; electrical measurements, design, and construction of measurement setups and instrumentation; earthing, stray current, and lightning protection design
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Measurement and monitoring of electrical and electromagnetic quantities in railways has always been an important part of the whole assessment of correct operation of the supply circuit, rolling stock, signaling, and control. The new challenges for sustainable mobility, for impact on third parties, and for high levels of reliability and continuity of service require the development and deployment of new monitoring architectures, integrating various types of smart sensing technologies: Resulting architectures may extend over the entire transportation system, being integrated with the existing infrastructure and exploiting interconnection and data exchange offered by modern communication means, as well as power harvesting.

More traditional applications cover power quality and compatibility with signaling and control systems. Examples of more recent applications range from the monitoring and quantification of the energy efficiency of the whole system (installing sensing units both on-board trains and in supply substations) to fostering predictive maintenance of the current collection system (with existing applications for catenary–pantograph contact quality covering a wide range of physical quantities, with a tendency to integrate modern energy meters with additional monitoring functions). Other applications may focus on the track, monitoring stray current, and corrosion (with challenges of data analysis on different time scales, depending also on the characteristics of the environmental and service conditions), as well as verifying the physical integrity of the track (exploiting existing signaling circuits, or using magnetic, traveling wave or ultrasound excitation).

This Special Issue thus cordially invites contributions on electrical and electromagnetic sensors, smart sensors and measurement, and monitoring architectures for railways.

Dr. Domenico Giordano
Prof. Dr. Andrea Mariscotti
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • voltage sensor
  • current sensor
  • energy efficiency
  • power quality
  • stray current
  • stray current control
  • pantograph arcing
  • rail diagnostic
  • sensor architecture

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 4771 KiB  
Article
Development of a Novel Railway Positioning System Using RFID Technology
by Osama Olaby, Moussa Hamadache, David Soper, Phil Winship and Roger Dixon
Sensors 2022, 22(6), 2401; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22062401 - 21 Mar 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3865
Abstract
Currently, a number of positioning systems are in use to locate trains on the railway network; but these generally have limited precision. Thus, this paper focuses on testing and validating the suitability of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, for aligning vehicles to switch [...] Read more.
Currently, a number of positioning systems are in use to locate trains on the railway network; but these generally have limited precision. Thus, this paper focuses on testing and validating the suitability of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, for aligning vehicles to switch and crossing (S&C) positions on the railway network. This offers the possibility of accurately knowing the position of vehicles equipped with monitoring equipment, such as the network rail track recording vehicle (TRV), and aligning the data with reference to the locations of the S&C (and ideally to key elements within a particular S&C). The concept is to install two tags, one on the switch-toe sleeper and the second on the crossing-nose sleeper, with an RFID reader that will be installed underneath the vehicle. Thus, the key features of the S&C, the switch toe and crossing nose, will be considered as a definitive reference point for the inspection vehicle’s position. As a monitoring vehicle passes over a piece of S&C, the proposed positioning system will provide information about this S&C’s ID, which is stored inside the RFID tags and will indicate the S&C’s GPS coordinates. As part of the research in this paper, more than 400 tests have been performed to investigate two different RFID technologies, passive and semi-passive, tested in a variety of conditions: including different passage speeds, different distances between the RFID reader and the tags, and varied strength signal transmitted between the reader and the tags. Based on lab testing and analysis of the recorded data, it is concluded that passive RFID technology is the most suitable of the two technologies. The conclusions find that the proposed RFID-based solution can offer a more precise positioning solution to be a reference point for the train location within the network. Full article
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12 pages, 923 KiB  
Article
Impact of DC Transient Disturbances on Harmonic Performance of Voltage Transformers for AC Railway Applications
by Palma Sara Letizia, Davide Signorino and Gabriella Crotti
Sensors 2022, 22(6), 2270; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22062270 - 15 Mar 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1215
Abstract
This paper analyzes the impact of typical DC transient events occurring in railway grids on the frequency performance of instrument transformers (ITs) installed onboard trains and in AC substations for power quality (PQ) applications. PQ monitoring in railway systems is an issue of [...] Read more.
This paper analyzes the impact of typical DC transient events occurring in railway grids on the frequency performance of instrument transformers (ITs) installed onboard trains and in AC substations for power quality (PQ) applications. PQ monitoring in railway systems is an issue of great interest because it plays a key role in the improvement of energy efficiency. The measurement chain for the PQ measurements, at 15 kV at 16.7 Hz and 25 kV at 50/60 Hz, commonly includes ITs to scale the voltage to levels fitting the input of the measurement units. Nevertheless, the behavior of ITs in the presence of PQ phenomena represents an open issue from a normative point of view, even for those installed in conventional AC power supply systems. In this context, the paper presents a possible definition of DC transient disturbances test waveforms, a measurement procedure, and a setup to assess the impact of these disturbances on the harmonic performances of ITs for railway systems. Preliminary experimental tests carried out on two commercial ITs under wide ranges of variation for the amplitude and the time duration of DC disturbances show that, in some cases, the error introduced in harmonic measurements can exceed 100%. Full article
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