Freight Wagons Innovative Derailment Detection Algorithm Design Based on Experimental Data

Although railway transportation is generally considered safe, derailments still occur causing significant service disruptions and economic losses. Therefore, reducing the number of train derailments is crucial for improving railway transportation safety. This paper presents a derailment detection system for freight trains that has been designed and tested based on full-scale freight wagon derailment tests performed in a previous experimental campaign. The system uses an algorithm that processes and analyzes data to identify the freight wagon derailment condition. A LoRa-based wireless communication system has also been implemented to send the freight wagon derailment warning to the locomotive. A freight wagon has then been equipped with the proposed derailment detection system, which has proven more robust against false triggering than the mechanic-pneumatic derailment detector based on the crossing of a single threshold. Furthermore, the proposed LoRa-based wireless communication syst...