| CPC G01M 5/0058 (2013.01) [B61L 23/042 (2013.01)] | 16 Claims |
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1. A method of aligning rail geometry parameter measurements comprising:
measuring a rail with a track recording vehicle to collect measurement data;
receiving the measurement data indicating variations in a parameter of the rail along a length of the rail derived from measurement runs performed at different points in time, each item of measurement data comprising a value for the parameter and an estimate of a location at which the parameter was measured;
forming a signal corresponding to each measurement run;
finding pairwise relative offsets between spatially overlapping segments in the signals corresponding to consecutive windows within the signals;
for each signal and window computing an average relative offset to other signals;
determining errors in the location estimates based on the computed average relative offsets;
using the determined errors to refine the location estimates in signal data; and
generating an alert if the value of the parameter exceeds a predetermined threshold or is predicted to exceed a predetermined threshold within a predetermined period,
wherein determining of errors in the location estimates is computed by imposing that a weighted average within each window should be zero, and
wherein the weighted average is computed using one or more weights that depend on a distance from the nearest estimated relative offset.
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