1. Rail Infrastructure
Measurment System
based on RIEGL VMX-450
Dr. Ivo Milev, Nikolaus Studnicka, Gerald Zach

2. Railway scanning
Riegl railway background
Approx. 1990
2

3. Railway scanning
Challenges in railway scanning
• Low variation in direction -> drift of heading angle
• No “on-the-fly” system calibration
• GNSS visibility in tunnels
• No DMI
• Transformation to the railway coordinate system
3

4. Railway scanning
Registration MLS
Road Rail track
Registration by using Registration by using
surveying poles on control points the planned rail axis
4

5. Railway scanning
VMX-250/450 MLS System
laser
scanner
mounting
platform
IMU
GNSS
receiver
fully-calibrated
Measuring Head
DMI
5

6. Railway scanning
VMX-250/450 MLS System
long term stability of the VMX system calibration:
“stable for ever”
6

7. Railway scanning
VMX-250/450 MLS System
Data acquisition with RiACQUIRE and touchscreen operation
7

8. Railway scanning
Product specification
VMX-250 VMX-450
Scanners 2 x RIEGL VQ-250 2 x RIEGL VQ-450
Effective Meas. Rate 600 kHz (2 x 300 kHz) 1.1 MHz (2 x 550 kHz)
Scanrate 200 Hz (2 x 100 Lines / sec) 400 Hz (2 x 200 Lines / sec)
500 m @ 80% & 100 kHz 800 m @ 80% & 300 kHz
Max. Range
75 m @ 10% & 300 kHz 140 m @ 10% & 300 kHz
Accuracy 10 mm 8 mm
Precision 5 mm
Position (absolute) typ. 20-50 mm
performance
INS/GNSS
Position (relative) typ. 10 mm
Roll & Pitch 0.005
Heading 0.015
Laser Class 1 (eye safe)
Camera System (optional) Up to 6 cameras with 5 megapixels
8

9. Railway scanning
Product specification
rotating mirror emitted pulse vg
R tTOF
echo return 2
LASER
target object
photo
scanner instrument
detector
echo digitization online waveform processing
analog to  multi target capability
digital conversion
 calibrated amplitude &
reflectance reading
SIGNAL PROCESSING
 pulse shape deviation
9

10. Railway scanning
Carried out projects: Germany
Railway Scanning
Sept, 2011 Frankfurt / Germany
compact design
-> easy transport and set up
-> installation on standard duty trailers
10

11. Railway scanning
Calibrated reflectance reading
point cloud encoded by reflectance: values > 0 dB in red 11

12. Railway scanning
Calibrated reflectance reading
12

13. Railway scanning
Pulse shape deviation
point filter based on
deviation values
BEFORE deviation
filter
AFTER deviation filter 13

14. Railway scanning
Carried out projects: Germany
14

15. Railway scanning
Carried out projects: Germany
You can find our application movies at:
www.youtube.com/user/RieglLMS 15

16. Railway scanning
Carried out projects: Germany
Time for setup 2 persons, 1.5 hours in total
Speed of the train 25km/h (limited by track motor car)
Time for data acquisition 1 operator for RiACQUIRE, 1 driver, 1 hour in total
Section processed Station Griesheim (0.6 km, 1 record)
Processed data volume scan data 4.7 GB, images 1.5 GB, of used record in section processed
Time for data processing 1 person for post-processing of data set,
15 minutes for processing including export into LAS format,
+ extra 15 minutes computation time for coloring the point cloud
Points in total 35 Mio. Points (1 record used)
Point density on ground approx. 3,600 points / m2 (close to trajectory)
Tasks & Products: Automatic extraction of rail axis,
fitment to rail coordinate system
Time for processing: 1 person (only for starting tasks)
0.5 hours computation time
Tasks & Products: Automatic collision detection based on user-defined wagon shapes;
Rail-axis based 3D Measurements; Clearance to platform corner, poles, wires,
etc.
Time for processing: 1 person, 5 minutes for automatic collision detection;
further measurements any time on demand 16

17. Railway scanning
Technet-rail product line
• SiRailScan and SiRailView
• Analyzing point clouds, modeling alignment
• Atrack-R and Verm.esn
• Analyze polylines and recover track elements
• SiRailManager
• Managing scan data and additional information
17

18. Railway scanning
SiRailScan
Analyzing and processing point
clouds
• Detection of rails
and infrastructure
objects
• Calculation of axis
and axis related
measurments
• Collision detection
with any wagon
shape
• Ortho views and
sections
• Several import and
export interfaces Rail detection for axis calculation designed as an adjustment process
18

19. Railway scanning
SiRailScan
Analyzing and processing point
clouds
• Detection of rails
and infrastructure
objects
• Calculation of axis
and axis related
measurments
• Collision detection
with any wagon
shape
• Ortho views and
sections
• Several import and
export interfaces Calculation: rails and axis
19

20. Railway scanning
SiRailScan
Analyzing and processing point
clouds
• Detection of rails
and infrastructure
objects
• Calculation of axis
and axis related
measurments
• Collision detection
with any wagon
shape
• Ortho views and
sections
• Several import and
export interfaces Perpendicular measurement of distance and height above axis to any
20
point (measurement is marked with white line)

21. Railway scanning
SiRailScan
Analyzing and processing point
clouds
• Detection of rails
and infrastructure
objects
• Calculation of axis
and axis related
measurments
• Collision detection
with any wagon
shape
• Ortho views and
sections
• Several import and
export interfaces Disalingment values between the vectorized rail track axis and power
21
lines , sag – important for the maintenance cycles

22. Railway scanning
SiRailScan
Analyzing and processing point
clouds
• Detection of rails
and infrastructure
objects
• Calculation of axis
and axis related
measurments
• Collision detection
with any wagon
shape
• Ortho views and
sections
• Several import and
export interfaces Collision points will be classified and separated for easy identification and further
analysis such as station referred vectorizations (LUE – “Lichtraum” units) 22

23. Railway scanning
SiRailScan
Analyzing and processing point
clouds
• Detection of rails
and infrastructure
objects
• Calculation of axis
and axis related
measurments
• Collision detection
with any wagon
shape
• Ortho views and
sections
• Several import and
export interfaces Create any orthoviews and sections
23
such as station referred sections or sections along a line

24. Railway scanning
Spatial database; Environmental Resource
Information Network
infrastructure
data base
data collection/ other
measurement sources
planimetric geo coded
trajectory 3D scans images LIRA drawings infrastructure photos
and maps data
track platform check of bridges other
collision distances single switches
geometry edge tunnels objects
points
24

25. Railway scanning
SiRailManager
Managing your kinematic point
clouds
• Combine your point
clouds with web
based map services
and planimetric
drawings
• Client-Server or web
based access to all
point cloud data (with
SiRailViewer)
Merge and manage your rail way infrastructure with existing
25
measurements (orange lines)

26. Railway scanning
SiRailManager
Managing your kinematic point
clouds
• Combine your point
clouds with web
based map services
and planimetric
drawings
• Client-Server or web
based access to all
point cloud data (with
SiRailViewer)
Visualize the timestampt and georeferenced photos from the
26
measurement system

27. Railway scanning
SiRailManager
Managing your kinematic point
clouds
• Combine your point
clouds with web
based map services
and planimetric
drawings
• Client-Server or web
based access to all
point cloud data (with
SiRailViewer)
Easy data access and analyse - everywhere
27

28. Railway scanning
SiRailManager
Managing your kinematic point
clouds
• Combine your point
clouds with web
based map services
and planimetric
drawings
• Client-Server or web
based access to all
point cloud data (with
SiRailViewer)
Select the background layer you need 28

29. Railway scanning
Integrity of the railway navigation database
Ambiguity free system determination
Oracle and
PostgreSQL
based
29

30. Railway scanning
SiRailViewer
Axis based analysis in axis refered
point clouds
• Perpendiculare
measurement to
wagon profile
• Detection of
minimum distance to
the platform
borderline
• Collision detection
• 3D distance
measurement and
measurement to
geometries After calculating the axis with SiRailScan, any point cloud can be
visualized and analyzed in axis referred mode (Axis point
30
coordinates: X = 0, Y = chainage, Z = 0)

31. Railway scanning
SiRailViewer
Axis based analysis in axis refered
point clouds
• Perpendiculare
measurement to
wagon profile
• Detection of
minimum distance to
the platform
borderline
• Collision detection
• 3D distance
measurement and
measurement to
geometries After calculating the axis with SiRailScan, any poincloud can be
visualized and analysed in axis refered mode. As example collor
31
based distances to the platform edge

32. Railway scanning
SiRailViewer
Axis based analysis in axis refered
point clouds
• Perpendiculare
measurement to
wagon profile
• Detection of
minimum distance to
the platform
borderline
• Collision detection
• 3D distance
measurement and
measurement to
geometries After calculating the axis with SiRailScan, any poincloud can be
visualized and analysed in axis refered mode (Axis point
32
coordinates: X = 0, Y = chainage, Z = 0)

33. Railway scanning
SiRailViewer
Axis based analysis in axis refered
point clouds
• Perpendiculare
measurement to
wagon profile
• Detection of
minimum distance to
the platform
borderline
• Collision detection
• 3D distance
measurement and
measurement to
geometries
Cleareance frame definition for Swiss
33

34. Railway scanning
SiRailViewer
Axis based analysis
in axis refered
point clouds
• Perpendiculare
measurement to
wagon profile
• Detection of
minimum distance to
the platform
borderline
• Collision detection
• 3D distance
measurement and
measurement to
geometries 34

35. Railway scanning
Curvature elements based on the recorded INS data
Axis based
analysis
35

36. Railway scanning
SiRailLayers
36

37. Railway scanning
SiRailLayers
37

38. Railway scanning
SiRailLayers
38

39. Railway scanning
SiRailLayers - PDF Ausgabe
39

40. Railway scanning
Android based applications
3.2 Honeycomb
4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
40

41. Railway scanning
Android based applications
41

42. Railway scanning
Conclusion
• Hardware: fully-calibrated measuring head – quick setup – mm accuracy
• Complete automated processes in real time and post processing
• Mounting configuration of Laser Scanners allows acquisition of traffic signs
perpendicular to trajectory
• Reliable survey of the environment – analyzing in 3D – clearance
analysis, collision tests, distances, extract geometrical elements
• 3D spatial data based on several data sources/ single databases
• Harmonized information system for GNSS based navigation and maintenance
• Android based mass market application based on these results but still for
engineers
42

43. Thank you for your
attention