Track geometry estimation from car-body vibration

Track maintenance works based on track geometry recordings are essential to enhance the safety and comfort of railway transportation. The track condition monitoring system is mainly used for the choice of area needing track tamping works for the purpose of the good riding comfort. An advantage of car-body acceleration measurement devices is their simple structures, which make it easier to carry out maintenance. However, the car-body acceleration waveform is considerably different from track geometry. This paper demonstrates the possibility to estimate the track geometry of Shinkansen tracks using car-body motions only. In an inverse problem to estimate track irregularity from car-body motions, a Kalman Filter (KF) was applied to solve the problem. Estimation results showed that track irregularity estimation in vertical direction is possible with acceptable accuracy for real use.