The railroad industry does not conjure up high-technology images for most people, but it takes a lot more to keep the trains running on schedule these days than a few guys shoveling coal into a furnace.
It only stands to reason that technology plays a major role in keeping things operational for an industry trusted with moving people and cargo across the United States. If something goes wrong with a train while it is in transit, the best-case scenario can be a slight delay. The worst-case scenario is an incident that could be damaging to both the railroad and its customers.
Many railroads operate a series of sensors and audio devices spaced about 20 to 40 miles apart along their tracks to monitor wheel heat and bearing sounds -- great indicators of possible wheel failures that can lead to disaster. The railroad can send these signals back to a datacenter via a network of fiber optic cables that run along the tracks. Systems in the datacenters crunch the sensor data to determine if a wheel is on the verge of failure and to take any necessary action.
The big problem is that a lot can happen between far-flung sensors and between the sensors and the datacenter. Some data-blind spots could be addressed with more sophisticated real-time data collection systems.
There are two main obstacles to real-time monitoring of connected devices on a railroad. The first is battery life; there just isn't enough of it right now to make real-time, always-on wireless sensors worth the investment. But with constant improvement in battery technology, it's just a matter of time before that mountain becomes a molehill.
Railroads also face an obstacle in connecting sensors. Most systems rely on a series of sensors mounted great distances from one another on the side of the track. The railroad gets an intermittent snapshot of what the wheels and bearings are doing as the trains pass by each sensor. A wireless sensor positioned on the actual wheel would be a more effective solution, allowing the railroad to monitor the wheels continuously and to report instantly when a wheel or bearing is in danger of failure.
There is another challenge: Assuming the railroads could get wireless sensors in place on every wheel, they would then need to focus on getting all that sensor data back to the datacenter. One option would be for the railroads to build their own wireless networks to gather sensor data continuously along the tracks, using fiber networks to backhaul signals to datacenters. But this presents some additional issues, since not all tracks are owned by the same railroad company. It is common, for instance, for a train from one company to travel on tracks from others. Multiple companies would have to work together to share data from their networks.
Problems with implementing the Internet of Things are not unique to railroads. Still, the railroads are in a slightly more advantageous position, since they already have part of the necessary infrastructure in place. If the railroads jump on this opportunity, they could inspire other industries to follow.
And yes, train stations are already using things like solar panels to record trains going by; we saw them recently when we took a train from Tahoe to Elko, Nevada.
Really, one of the biggest problems with the Internet of Things is the amount of data it generates.
Those stories are almost always best when told in the first person -- As to their not taking any action, sometimes it really surprises me how companies with a perfect opportunity for improvement squander it. A real shame
Why are there problems in data communication between sensors and data centers? Is it because of the distance or because of the transmission disturbances caused by other communications going on between the range ?
I would agree with you here that it should be possible for atleast passenger trains keeping in mind the loss that would occur in unforeseen circumstances. However, I think that the biggest hurdle would be the data communication in between the sensors and the data centres.
This test seems pretty cool, these cars will be talking to each other and the data gathered will be used in developing systems that might find theire way into cars in the future.
I get your point and you are right. There are a lot of complexities in cargo trains. Its not possible to time everything on it. However, I still humbly insist that for passenger trains, atleast, it is possible and metro-trains are the perfect example. Its just my thought and I am sure that there would be limitations to implementing such a sophisticated solution for a countrywide rail network.
Exactly so, we must remembet that technology is just a tool, and some common sense is helpful too! The railroad had procedures in place, but they were arbitrarily written and even more arbitrarily enforced, so the actual procedures followed were the ones developed pragmatically by the employees. It's awfully easy to depend on rules and technology to bail you out of a problem. What works a lot better is encouraging people to think about what they are doing.
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When it comes to broadband development, the US is not exactly a superstar, ranking 23rd out of 57 countries, according to the research firm Strategy Analytics. Even when you take into account the unique geographic challenges compared with many of the other nations on the firm's list, it's easy to see there are still many areas where the US is deficient.
Just before 9:00 a.m. on May 22, the official Google blog announced the completion of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility. The closing of the deal was all but a formality once the US and the EU regulators gave the deal a wink and a nod back in February. Still, it represents the joining of a major Internet player with a major player from the device world -- although whether anything truly new will result has yet to be seen.
Earlier this month, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) dropped a lawsuit it filed against the FCC in 2009 in an attempt to block the development of white space wireless broadband.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
The bring-your-own-device approach isn’t suited to monitoring of enterprise equipment and processes. In these cases, it is up to IT to come forward with gear suited to the task.
Advances in robotics and Internet bandwidth speed mean that low-wage foreign workers may soon be remotely controlling worker robots in the US and Europe. Companies like VGo, iRobots, and Willow Garage sell robots that may enable workers in India to produce cars in the US.
Companies used to be confident they'd know exactly what a cellular OS would look like out of the box. Today, that confidence should be fading. Reiter discusses how a cellphone OS's looks could be deceiving, and why businesses need to understand it.
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The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
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