Pantographs of electric rail vehicles are fitted with carbon contact strips, which slide along the contact wire of catenary to provide constant electrical contact. Contact strips are exposed to wear and damages. Using damaged contact strips significantly increases the risk of catenary rupture. Therefore, their technical condition has to be inspected frequently. In previous work a 3D laser scanning system was proposed for recording...

Electric rail vehicles use current collection system which consists of overhead contact line and a current collector (pantograph) mounted on the roof of a vehicle. A pantograph is equipped with contact strips, which slide along the contact wire, ensuring steady electric contact. Contact strips are made of carbon layer, fixed to an aluminum carrier. The carbon layer wears down due to friction. Using overly worn contact strips increases...

The paper presents an approach to evaluation of height measurement errors in laser scanning inspection system. The system, consisting of a laser line generator and a specialized camera, is dedicated to diagnosing carbon contact strips of railway vehicles’ pantographs. While height measurement resolution is easily computable based on system parameters, determining the measurement error is troublesome due to numerous impacts. As...