Development and calibration of a wireless, inertial measurement unit (kli-pi) for railway and transportation applications

Abstract

With the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution characterized by the rapid advancement and development of 3D printing technologies, miniaturization of transducers and the emergence of big data applications, the railway industry stands to benefit from the implementation of these technologies in the immediate future. “Kli-Pi” is a demonstrative prototype instrument, incorporating a number of these recent advancements in the form of a 9 DoF (Degree of Freedom) IMU (tri-axis accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer inertial measurement unit) that can be applied as either an intelligent ballast particle embedded in a railway track, or can be fixed to a particular component under study to measure various response parameters (linear acceleration and angular velocity), recording up to 3,000 data samples per second. The development of both the instrument and its accompanying 3D printed exoskeleton (or shell) is discussed, together with a brief overview of preliminary field testing and its results.