Development of a Device to Measure the Thickness of Contact Strips and Horns of Pantographs

In high-speed railways, the contact strips and horns mounted on the pantographs of trains are consumables because they wear down through contact with overhead wires, which requires frequent visual inspections. If an automatic inspection device to measure the thickness of contact strips and horns can be installed on the main line, such as at stations, it not only reduces labor but also significantly increases inspection frequency. Given this background, we developed a highly accurate method to measure the thickness of the contact strips on the pantographs of high-speed trains. The developed method employs a laser-based optical cutting technique and enables the device to conduct measurements while maintaining the required insulation distance from the overhead wires. In addition, we developed a noise-reduction algorithm to improve data quality, which confirms that our method achieves sufficient accuracy even at higher speeds (70km/h) compared to those of conventional methods. A prototype device installed at the entrance of a Tokaido Shinkansen station track demonstrated the effectiveness of the method.