Center for Vehicle Systems & Safety
Lab Intern
At Virginia Tech’s Center for Vehicle Systems & Safety, I am a part of a group of undergraduate students working on EagleEye, a portable rail-inspection system. EagleEye is designed to capture undercarriage imagery as rail vehicles pass overhead, allowing train inspection to happen in real-time, remotely, without needing to stop the train. As a lab intern, I supported the continued development of the system through mechanical design, sensor and electronics integration, and improvements to its inspection workflow.
CVeSS Rail Inspection
Rail Inspection Clamp
During testing, the device was translating from the train vibrations, impacting the image quality. I designed a mechanical stabilization system to secure it to the rail tie during trackside operation, ensuring that the image quality would not be impacted during operation.
Technical work
- Designed a clamp mechanism in Autodesk Fusion 360 to secure the portable inspection system to existing track infrastructure
- Integrated the clamp into the existing aluminum-extrusion structure
Technical documentation
1 images
CVeSS Rail Inspection
Train Detection Circuit
The device was having trouble reliably detecting the presence of a train. I helped diagnose the problem, a logic error into the Arduino code alongside an undervoltage issue. Improvements were then implemented, leading to a 100% accuracy in identifying train presence.
Technical work
- Reconfigured an Arduino circuit used to detect passing rail vehicles and initiate the recording sequence
- Diagnosed hardware and power-related issues during system testing and implemented improvements
- Documented the updated circuit and wiring configuration for future reference