Non-destructive analysis (NDT) of pantograph and catenary interaction

In the last decades the development of very high speed trains in railway transportation requires new maintenance strategies. New trolleys equipped with innovative measuring systems have been employed for monitoring overhead lines (catenaries). Using this system gives two great advantages: i) the diagnose can be performed with a low level of breaking in railway traffic; ii) the monitoring can be executed at the same speed of ordinary locomotives in order to point out the stress suffered by mechanical components of the train and the railroad structure. In this paper we present a vision system for monitoring of the catenary staggering. We propose a new method which is able to measure the position of the overhead line by a stereovision system. All these sensors are installed on a innovative maintenance trolley. Experimental results in real context are presented.