A full-automatic electric car coupler detection and simulation coupling system

Abstract

This invention discloses a fully automated electric coupler inspection and simulated coupling system, comprising: a split-type portable lower-level inspection fixture, coupled with a host computer visualization terminal, four-level layered electrical isolation, and an automatic data acquisition mechanism with an independent channel anti-shake algorithm. A single person can complete the entire electrical circuit inspection of the electric coupler within minutes, without the need for actual vehicle track switching operations, thus isolating the risk of high-voltage electric shock at the hardware level. It automatically stores and exports inspection data, can quickly highlight and locate fault points, and reserves software and hardware expansion interfaces to adapt to multiple models of electric couplers. This not only fills the industry gap in dedicated portable intelligent inspection equipment for fully automated electric couplers but also enables routine inspection and digital operation and maintenance of electric couplers, significantly reducing the operation and maintenance management costs of urban rail lines. This invention solves the technical problems of existing electric coupler systems lacking daily inspection methods, and traditional inspection methods being time-consuming, labor-intensive, risky, and difficult to trace data.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of rail transit vehicle inspection technology, specifically a fully automatic electric coupler inspection and simulation coupling system. Background Technology

[0002] The electric coupler is the core module in a fully automatic coupler system that enables automatic connection and disconnection of circuits between trains, and is crucial for rescue operations and flexible train formation.

[0003] From the current development perspective of the Qingdao Metro network, Line 6 is the first fully automated line in the network, and all subsequent new lines will adopt a fully automated operation mode, meaning all trains will be equipped with electric couplers. The electric couplers on Line 6 mainly perform a limited number of functions, such as emergency coupling and uncoupling control, parking brake release and application, and PIDS broadcast linkage. Therefore, the electric coupler maintenance manual does not require verification of their electrical functions during routine maintenance, only requiring disassembly and testing during overhauls. However, electric coupler malfunctions have occurred in previous emergency drills, reflecting a blind spot in the current maintenance process regarding the testing of electric coupler electrical functions. Looking at long-term development, the network will later introduce trains with flexible formation capabilities, resulting in frequent coupler couplings, more complex electrical functions for the electric couplers, and more complex interface points, thus increasing the requirements for testing coverage and frequency.

[0004] Currently, there is a lack of dedicated testing equipment in the industry. The main methods used by Datie and other subway lines are: one is to manually measure continuity point by point with a handheld multimeter; the other is to connect two trains and then switch tracks to test the coupler function of the head car and the tail car. Both methods are inefficient, time-consuming, and pose safety hazards.

[0005] Therefore, to meet current needs, a fully automated electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system is proposed. Summary of the Invention

[0006] The purpose of this invention is to provide a fully automated electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system. Through a split-type portable lower-level testing fixture, coupled with a host computer visualization terminal, four-level layered electrical isolation, and an automatic data acquisition mechanism with an independent channel anti-shake algorithm, a single person can complete the entire electrical circuit detection of the electric coupler within minutes, without the need for actual vehicle track switching operations. This isolates the risk of high-voltage electric shock from a hardware perspective. The system automatically stores and exports test data, quickly highlights and locates fault points, and reserves software and hardware expansion interfaces to adapt to multiple electric coupler models. This not only fills the industry gap in dedicated portable intelligent testing equipment for fully automated electric couplers but also enables routine testing and digital operation and maintenance of electric couplers, significantly reducing the operation and maintenance management costs of urban rail lines and solving the problems mentioned in the background section.

[0007] To achieve the above objectives, the present invention provides the following technical solution: A fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system includes: a lower-level detection fixture and a higher-level monitoring terminal; The lower-level machine testing fixture is composed of a main body and a wiring expansion box. The wiring expansion box is connected to the main body via a cable. The lower-level machine testing fixture integrates a main control unit, 16-channel digital input detection circuit, 4-channel short-circuit continuity test circuit, four-level isolation power supply circuit, status indication circuit and external wiring interface. The host computer monitoring terminal is equipped with visualization control software. The host computer monitoring terminal and the lower-level testing fixture are connected via WiFi LAN and TCP / JSON communication protocol. The host computer monitoring terminal receives all channel status data periodically reported by the lower-level device in real time, visualizes the level status of 16 digital quantities, the voltage values ​​of 4 short-circuit loops and the pass / fail judgment results, and automatically stores the full detection log.

[0008] Furthermore, the main unit adopts a 3D printed custom shell. The shell of the main unit is T-shaped, with four black square buttons and a small OLED display embedded in the lower front of the shell for on-site parameter viewing and manual operation. The top of the shell has an indicator light window, which integrates the ESP32-S3 main control board, isolation switching power supply module, relay array and signal acquisition circuit, and has a built-in power supply. The wiring expansion box has a horizontal cuboid structure. The wiring terminals on the top plate of the wiring expansion box are arranged according to functional areas, including: a red banana socket installed on the left side, a reserved installation position for switches and interfaces in the middle, and a reserved expansion hole on the right side.

[0009] Furthermore, the lower-level machine testing fixture also has a built-in fault-tolerant protection mechanism, specifically including: The power input circuit is connected in series with a 5A self-resetting PPTC fuse and an SMBJ150A transient suppression TVS diode. The four-stage isolation power supply circuit has built-in UVLO undervoltage lockout threshold and OVP overvoltage shutdown threshold. When the input voltage exceeds the rated range, the power supply to the next stage is automatically cut off. Enable the ESP32-S3 built-in RTC hardware watchdog timer with a preset timeout. At the same time, enable the FreeRTOS task watchdog to monitor the core tasks tcp_server_task and dio_scan_task. If the watchdog is not fed after the task timeout, the entire machine will automatically reset. The relay engagement is set with a timeout protection mechanism. If the sampling judgment is not completed within the preset time after the test command is issued, all relay coils will be automatically released. If the ADC sampling value deviates from the normal range for three consecutive times in the software layer, the test of the corresponding channel will be automatically terminated and a fault alarm will be pushed to the host computer monitoring terminal. After the device is powered on, it automatically completes the following in sequence: GPIO pin mode verification, 74HC165 SPI communication read / write verification, four-channel ADC zero-point calibration, four-channel relay on / off self-test, and WiFi hotspot broadcast verification. After all self-tests pass, the RUN indicator flashes three times and then stays on. If any self-test fails, the ERROR red indicator stays on and pushes a fault event JSON frame to the host computer, which includes the fault code, fault description, and timestamp. During normal operation, the system automatically performs optocoupler and relay loop detection. After the relay is activated, the ADC voltage is read. If the voltage deviates from the 80V to 130V range, it indicates that the relay contact is oxidized or the voltage divider circuit is faulty. If a standard 110V level is applied to the digital channel and there is no status feedback for three consecutive times, the optocoupler of the corresponding channel is determined to be faulty.

[0010] Furthermore, the main control unit adopts an ESP32-S3-WROOM dual-core processor module, with built-in 8MB Flash, 8MB PSRAM, a 2.4GHz WiFi4 and BLE5.0 communication module, and two 12-bit ADCs. It is equipped with the FreeRTOS real-time operating system, which is used to divide system tasks into three independent tasks: tcp_server_task, dio_scan_task, and status_report_task, and to complete signal acquisition, relay logic control, wireless data transmission and reception, and fault diagnosis in parallel. Among them, dio_scan_task acquires level signals at a 100Hz cycle, and has a built-in 50ms independent channel debouncing algorithm. Each channel independently records the level change timestamp. The 16-channel digital input detection circuit is used to acquire 16 DC110V control level signals of the tested electric coupler, and sequentially connects a current-limiting resistor, a TLP281-4 optocoupler isolation chip, and two cascaded 74HC165 shift registers. It forms a 3-wire SPI bus through 3 GPIOs to complete the parallel acquisition of 16 high-voltage signals.

[0011] Furthermore, the four-channel short-circuit continuity test circuit drives the transistor to control the on / off state of the electromagnetic relay by outputting the level of the main control GPIO; after the output terminal of the electromagnetic relay is connected to the resistor voltage divider sampling circuit, it is connected to the main control ADC pin to automatically sample, convert and determine the pass / fail of the short-circuit loop voltage under test.

[0012] Furthermore, the four-level isolation power supply circuit adopts a layered isolation structure and parameters to achieve complete electrical isolation between the vehicle's DC110V high-voltage power supply system and the low-voltage main control logic circuit and relay drive circuit.

[0013] Furthermore, the external wiring interface is divided into zones with digital Phoenix terminals, short-circuit test banana sockets, vehicle DC110V power supply terminals, and USB-C firmware debugging and burning interfaces, to enable rapid on-site connection of the electrical coupler under test.

[0014] Furthermore, the status indication circuit is equipped with three independent LED status indicators, which are used to provide feedback on three types of statuses: overall power supply, wireless communication connection, and system fault alarm.

[0015] Compared with the prior art, the beneficial effects of the present invention are: With a split-type portable lower-level testing fixture, coupled with a host computer visualization terminal, four-level layered electrical isolation, and an automatic data acquisition mechanism with an independent channel anti-shake algorithm, a single person can complete the entire electrical circuit test of the electric hook in a few minutes without the need for actual train track switching operations, thus isolating the risk of high-voltage electric shock from the hardware level. The test data is automatically stored and exported, and fault points can be quickly highlighted and located. The equipment and material costs are low. In addition, it has reserved software and hardware expansion interfaces to adapt to multiple models of electric hooks. It not only fills the industry gap of dedicated portable intelligent testing equipment for fully automatic electric hooks, but also enables routine testing and digital operation and maintenance of electric hooks, greatly reducing the manpower, time, and safety management costs of urban rail line operation and maintenance, and ensuring the reliability of electric hooks in train rescue and flexible formation scenarios. Attached Figure Description

[0016] Figure 1 This is a structural diagram of the host body of the present invention; Figure 2 This is the schematic diagram of the 16-channel DC110V circuit of the present invention; Figure 3 This is a schematic diagram of the 4-way short-circuit conduction loop verification circuit of the present invention.

[0017] In the diagram: 1. Main unit. Detailed Implementation

[0018] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present invention, and not all embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative effort are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0019] To address the technical problems of existing electric hooks lacking routine inspection methods, and the fact that traditional inspection methods are time-consuming, labor-intensive, pose high safety risks, and are difficult to trace data, please refer to [link / reference needed]. Figure 1-3 This embodiment provides the following technical solution: A fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system includes: a lower-level detection fixture and an upper-level monitoring terminal.

[0020] The lower-level testing fixture consists of a main unit 1 and a wiring expansion box, which are separate components. The wiring expansion box is connected to the main unit 1 via a cable. During wiring, the operator only needs to connect the wiring expansion box to the signal of the electric hook under test. The main unit 1 can be placed in a safe area to achieve high and low voltage separation operation, improving on-site safety. The main unit 1 uses a 3D-printed custom shell made of frosted purple engineering plastic. The shell of the main unit 1 is T-shaped with rounded corners. Four black square buttons and a small OLED display are embedded in the lower part of the front of the shell for on-site parameter checking. Visual and manual operation are both possible; an indicator light window is located on the top of the housing for easy observation of the equipment's operating status. Internally, it integrates an ESP32-S3 main control board, an isolating switching power supply module, a relay array, and signal acquisition circuits, and has a built-in power supply, eliminating the need for an external power adapter. The wiring expansion box has a horizontal rectangular structure, combining a black 3D-printed housing with a transparent acrylic top plate. The top plate of the wiring expansion box has wiring terminals arranged according to functional zones, including: a red banana socket on the left, a reserved switch and interface mounting position in the middle, and numerous expansion holes on the right for future addition of testing channels.

[0021] The lower-level testing fixture integrates a main control unit, 16-channel digital input detection circuits, 4-channel short-circuit continuity test circuits, a four-level isolation power supply circuit, a status indicator circuit, and external wiring interfaces. The main control unit uses an ESP32-S3-WROOM dual-core processor module with a processor frequency of 240MHz. It has 8MB Flash, 8MB PSRAM, a 2.4GHz WiFi 4 and BLE 5.0 communication module, and two 12-bit ADCs. It runs on the FreeRTOS real-time operating system, which divides system tasks into three independent tasks: tcp_server_task, dio_scan_task, and status_report_task. These tasks are performed in parallel to complete signal acquisition, relay logic control, wireless data transmission and reception, and fault diagnosis. The dio_scan_task acquires level signals at a 100Hz cycle and has a built-in 50ms independent channel debouncing algorithm. Each channel independently records the level change timestamp, and only updates the valid status register after the level remains stable for more than 50ms, filtering electromagnetic interference pulses that last less than 50ms.

[0022] The 16-channel digital input detection circuit is used to acquire 16 DC110V control level signals of the tested electric coupler. A current-limiting resistor, a TLP281-4 optocoupler isolation chip, and two cascaded 74HC165 shift registers are connected in series. A 3-wire SPI bus is formed through 3 GPIOs to complete the parallel acquisition of 16 high-voltage signals. The 4-channel short-circuit continuity test circuit outputs levels through the main control GPIO to drive transistors to control the on / off state of electromagnetic relays. The output of the electromagnetic relays is connected to a resistor divider sampling circuit, which is then connected to the main control ADC pin to automatically sample, convert, and determine the pass / fail status of the short-circuit loop voltage under test.

[0023] The four-stage isolation power supply circuit employs a layered isolation structure and parameters to achieve complete electrical isolation between the vehicle's DC110V high-voltage power supply system and the low-voltage main control logic circuit and relay drive circuit, eliminating the risk of high-voltage electric shock at the hardware level. The layered isolation structure and parameters of the four-stage isolation power supply circuit include: First-stage isolation: The vehicle's input DC74V~132V wide-range power supply is converted to DC5V by the isolation switching power supply module, achieving initial electrical isolation between the 110V high-voltage side and the low-voltage control side. The DC5V power supply powers the coils and drive transistors of four short-circuit test relays; Second-stage isolation: The DC5V power supply is linearly stabilized by an AMS1117-3.3... The voltage regulator chip outputs a DC 3.3V voltage to power the main control unit, 74HC165 shift register, optocoupler logic side, and other low-voltage digital circuits. The third level of isolation uses a TLP281-4 four-channel optocoupler chip for the 16-channel digital input circuit. The optocoupler isolation withstand voltage is greater than 3750Vrms, and the signal response time is less than 5ms, isolating the 110V high-voltage signal acquisition terminal from the 3.3V main control logic terminal. The fourth level of isolation uses a G6B-2214P-US-DC5V electromagnetic relay for the short-circuit test circuit, isolating the 5V transistor drive control terminal from the 110V tested contact circuit. The relay contact's rated parameters are 5A / 110VDC, and it has a built-in arc-extinguishing structure.

[0024] The status indication circuit is equipped with three independent LED status indicators, used to provide feedback on three statuses: overall power supply, wireless communication connection, and system fault alarm. Specifically, these include: GPIO42 driving a green PWR power indicator, which remains lit after the tooling power switch is closed, indicating normal power supply; GPIO43 driving a green RUN indicator, which flashes three times after WiFi hotspot establishment and successful connection to the host computer, then remains lit, indicating normal system communication; and GPIO44 driving a red ERROR fault indicator, which remains lit when the device fails power-on self-test, communication is interrupted, channel acquisition is abnormal, or a relay fails, and simultaneously pushes a fault log to the host computer. External wiring interfaces are arranged in zones including digital Phoenix terminals, short-circuit test banana sockets, vehicle DC110V power supply terminals, and a USB-C firmware debugging and programming interface, enabling rapid on-site connection of the electrical coupler under test.

[0025] The lower-level machine testing fixture also has a built-in fault-tolerant protection mechanism for the entire machine, specifically including: The power input circuit is connected in series with a 5A self-resetting PPTC fuse and an SMBJ150A transient suppression TVS diode. The four-stage isolation power supply circuit has a built-in UVLO undervoltage lockout threshold of 65V and an OVP overvoltage shutdown threshold of 145V. When the input voltage exceeds the rated range of DC74V~132V, the power supply to the next stage is automatically cut off.

[0026] Enable the ESP32-S3 built-in RTC hardware watchdog timer with a preset timeout of 5 seconds. Simultaneously enable the FreeRTOS task watchdog to monitor the core tasks tcp_server_task and dio_scan_task. If the watchdog is not fed after the task timeout, the entire machine will automatically reset.

[0027] The relay activation is equipped with a 5-second timeout protection mechanism. If sampling and judgment are not completed within 5 seconds after the test command is issued, all relay coils will be automatically released to prevent the coils from overheating and being damaged due to prolonged energization. If the ADC sampling values ​​deviate from the normal range for three consecutive times in the software layer, the test of the corresponding channel will be automatically terminated, and a fault alarm will be pushed to the host computer monitoring terminal. The ADC sampling and filtering logic is as follows: each short-circuit test channel continuously samples the raw ADC values ​​four times, and the arithmetic mean is taken as the effective sampling value to suppress white noise interference. After conversion, the voltage fluctuation amplitude is less than 0.5V. The ADC is configured with 11dB internal attenuation, and the range covers 0 to 3.55V. After matching and voltage division, the maximum input voltage is 3.0V to avoid overvoltage breakdown of the ADC pins.

[0028] After the device is powered on, it automatically completes the following in sequence: GPIO pin mode verification, 74HC165 SPI communication read / write verification, four-channel ADC zero-point calibration, four-channel relay on / off self-test, and WiFi hotspot broadcast verification. After all self-tests pass, the RUN indicator flashes three times and then stays on. If any self-test fails, the ERROR red indicator stays on and pushes a fault event JSON frame to the host computer, which includes the fault code, fault description, and timestamp.

[0029] During normal operation, the system automatically performs optocoupler and relay loop detection. After the relay is activated, the ADC voltage is read. If the voltage deviates from the 80V to 130V range, it indicates that the relay contact is oxidized or the voltage divider circuit is faulty. If a standard 110V level is applied to the digital channel and there is no status feedback for three consecutive times, the optocoupler of the corresponding channel is determined to be faulty.

[0030] The host computer monitoring terminal is equipped with visual control software developed based on PyQt6. The host computer monitoring terminal and the slave testing fixture are connected via a 2.4GHz WiFi LAN and TCP / JSON communication protocol. The TCP communication port is fixed at 8080. It receives all channel status data periodically reported by the slave device in real time, and visually displays the status of 16 digital signals, the voltage values ​​of 4 short-circuit loops, and the pass / fail judgment results. It automatically stores the full test log. Specifically, the host computer's real-time interface uses colored dots to indicate the status of each channel. A green dot indicates that the corresponding loop has detected a high DC110V. The gray dot indicates that there is no effective voltage in the circuit. The total delay from level change to interface refresh is less than 60ms. After the short circuit test is completed, the software automatically summarizes the original ADC value, converted voltage, and pass / fail judgment mark for each channel. All test data is automatically stored locally in a structured format. When the operator clicks the export button, a standardized report in Excel or text format is generated, which includes the test time, equipment number, 16 channel level records, 4 short circuit voltages, fault location, and judgment conclusion. The report can be directly saved into the depot's operation and maintenance archive for the full life cycle performance trend analysis and predictive maintenance of the electric coupler.

[0031] The beneficial effects achieved by the above are as follows: Through the split-type portable lower-level testing fixture, combined with the upper-level visual terminal, four-level layered electrical isolation, and an automatic data acquisition mechanism with an independent channel anti-shake algorithm, a single person can complete the complete electrical circuit test of the electric hook in a few minutes without the need for actual train track switching operations, thus isolating the risk of high-voltage electric shock from the hardware level; the test data is automatically stored and exported, and fault points can be quickly highlighted and located, with low equipment and material costs; and the reserved software and hardware expansion interfaces are adapted to multiple models of electric hooks, which not only fills the industry gap of dedicated portable intelligent testing equipment for fully automatic electric hooks, but also enables routine testing and digital operation and maintenance of electric hooks, significantly reducing the manpower, time, and safety management costs of urban rail line operation and maintenance, and ensuring the reliability of electric hooks in train rescue and flexible formation scenarios.

[0032] This embodiment demonstrates a parallel comparative test of the same fully automatic electric coupler in a high-electromagnetic environment at an urban rail vehicle depot maintenance yard. The test employed three methods: this system, manual multimeter testing, and train track switching and coupling testing. DC 100V-120V was used as the standard for circuit qualification. The test process and results are as follows: Control group 1: Manual multimeter point-by-point testing requires two maintenance personnel to work together, and a single person takes 15-20 minutes to complete the test; the operator directly contacts the DC110V high-voltage contacts, posing a high risk of electric shock; relying on paper-based handwritten data recording makes it easy to make mistakes or omissions; without filtering and anti-interference design, electromagnetic glitches on site can easily cause numerical misjudgments; faults need to be retested point by point, which is time-consuming; the overall tool set has a low purchase cost, but the long-term manual maintenance cost is relatively high, and it is portable but highly dependent on manual contact with live terminals.

[0033] Control group 2: The train coupling and track switching inspection, dispatching, and maintenance require a team of three people working together. The complete inspection of a single train's electric coupler takes 2.5 hours. Multiple applications for track switching and control of track power supply and shutdown are required, leading to numerous secondary safety hazards. Only paper records are kept, with no structured electronic data. Faults require repeated track switching, disassembly, and coupling, resulting in a long troubleshooting cycle. The equipment is a fixed platform type, costing 3,000-5,000 yuan, and cannot be moved to the locomotive for on-site use. There is no anti-interference mechanism, and frequent burrs and false signal alarms occur on-site.

[0034] Experimental group: This fully automatic electric coupler testing and simulated coupling system can be operated independently by only one maintenance personnel. After the wiring is completed, the channel testing takes less than 1 minute. The entire process, including wiring, self-testing, testing, and report export, takes only 3-5 minutes.

[0035] It adopts a four-level isolation hardware architecture, with no high-voltage contact points throughout the process, eliminating the risk of electric shock; the lower-level computer automatically stores data in JSON, and the upper-level computer can export Excel / text reports with one click, eliminating errors from manual recording; the upper-level computer provides a 16-channel visual display, with fault points highlighted in red for instantaneous location.

[0036] The total material cost of the machine is about 200 yuan. It has a built-in 50ms independent de-jitter algorithm and an electromagnetic interference false alarm elimination rate of over 99%. The split lightweight structure allows it to be carried to any location on the train for on-site testing.

[0037] Comparative test conclusions: This system significantly reduces the number of operators and inspection time, eliminates high-voltage safety hazards from the hardware source; achieves full digital archiving of inspection data, facilitating performance traceability throughout the entire life cycle of the electric hook; and is superior to the two traditional inspection solutions in terms of fault location speed, on-site anti-interference capability, portability, and equipment economy.

[0038] Extreme operating condition verification example: A laboratory extreme testing platform was built to conduct comprehensive verification of the system's reliability.

[0039] Wide voltage power supply verification: After continuous operation for 2 hours with input DC74V-132V vehicle extreme voltage fluctuation, the output of each level of isolation power supply is stable, and there is no deviation in channel identification and ADC sampling; the power supply has built-in 65V undervoltage and 145V overvoltage protection, and automatically cuts off the downstream circuit when the threshold is exceeded.

[0040] Strong electromagnetic interference verification: Superimposed 20ms instantaneous high voltage pulse to simulate on-site motor and contactor interference, 50ms software debouncing algorithm can filter out most interference glitches, false alarm elimination rate of over 99%, effective level change signal is not lost or falsely filtered.

[0041] Hardware fault tolerance and long-term operation verification: The device has been continuously tested for 72 hours without downtime; the hardware and system dual watchdog monitors the core tasks, and the whole machine is automatically reset when the program is blocked; the relay automatically releases after 5 seconds to prevent the coil from overheating; the power-on POST self-test can identify faults in various devices such as SPI, ADC, optocoupler, and relay, and push standardized fault alarm messages to the host computer.

[0042] Split structure adaptation verification: The host and the wiring expansion box are connected by a 10m shielded cable. There is no signal attenuation during high and low voltage zone operation. The refresh delay of the host computer interface is consistently below 60ms, making it suitable for maintenance in narrow vehicle fronts and long-distance safe operation scenarios.

[0043] Table 1. Data from the multi-scheme comparison experiment ; Working Principle: A split-type lower-level machine tooling is used in conjunction with an upper-level machine to work together. The lower-level machine is mainly controlled by an ESP32-S3, which relies on a four-level isolation circuit to isolate the DC110V high-voltage and low-voltage logic circuits of the vehicle. It collects 16 channels of digital level signals of the electric coupler through optocouplers and shift registers, and automatically completes the detection of 4 short-circuit loop voltages by combining relays and voltage divider ADC circuits. It also uses an independent channel debouncing algorithm to filter electromagnetic interference on site. The real-time detection data is wirelessly transmitted to the PyQt6 upper-level machine via TCP / JSON protocol. The upper-level machine visualizes the status of each loop and automatically determines whether the loop is qualified. It stores and exports a standardized test report, thereby simulating the electrical interaction of train coupling and completing the full-circuit automated performance verification of the electric coupler.

[0044] It should be noted that in this paper, relational terms such as first and second are used only to distinguish one entity or operation from another entity or operation, and do not necessarily require or imply any such actual relationship or order between these entities or operations.

[0045] Although embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes, modifications, substitutions and alterations can be made to these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

1. A fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system, characterized in that, include: The lower-level testing fixture and the upper-level monitoring terminal are provided. The lower-level testing fixture consists of a main body (1) and a wiring expansion box, which are connected to the main body (1) via a cable. The lower-level testing fixture integrates a main control unit, 16 digital input detection circuits, 4 short-circuit continuity test circuits, a four-level isolation power supply circuit, a status indication circuit, and an external wiring interface. The lower-level testing fixture also has a built-in fault-tolerant protection mechanism. The upper-level monitoring terminal is equipped with visualization control software to receive all channel status data periodically reported by the lower-level machine in real time and to visualize the values ​​and pass / fail results of each channel.

2. The fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The main body (1) adopts a 3D printed custom shell. The shell of the main body (1) is T-shaped. Four black square buttons and a small OLED display are embedded in the lower part of the front of the shell for on-site parameter viewing and manual operation. An indicator light window is provided on the top of the shell. The ESP32-S3 main control board, isolation switching power supply module, relay array and signal acquisition circuit are integrated inside, and a built-in power supply is also provided. The wiring expansion box has a horizontal cuboid structure. The wiring terminals on the top plate of the wiring expansion box are arranged according to functional areas, including: a red banana socket installed on the left side, a reserved installation position for switches and interfaces in the middle, and a reserved expansion hole on the right side.

3. The fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The lower-level machine testing fixture also has a built-in fault-tolerant protection mechanism for the entire machine, specifically including: The power input circuit is connected in series with a 5A self-resetting PPTC fuse and an SMBJ150A transient suppression TVS diode. The four-stage isolation power supply circuit has built-in UVLO undervoltage lockout threshold and OVP overvoltage shutdown threshold. When the input voltage exceeds the rated range, the power supply to the next stage is automatically cut off. Enable the ESP32-S3 built-in RTC hardware watchdog timer with a preset timeout. At the same time, enable the FreeRTOS task watchdog to monitor the core tasks tcp_server_task and dio_scan_task. If the watchdog is not fed after the task timeout, the entire machine will automatically reset. The relay engagement is set with a timeout protection mechanism. If the sampling judgment is not completed within the preset time after the test command is issued, all relay coils will be automatically released. If the ADC sampling value deviates from the normal range for three consecutive times in the software layer, the test of the corresponding channel will be automatically terminated and a fault alarm will be pushed to the host computer monitoring terminal. After the device is powered on, it automatically completes the following in sequence: GPIO pin mode verification, 74HC165 SPI communication read / write verification, four-channel ADC zero-point calibration, four-channel relay on / off self-test, and WiFi hotspot broadcast verification. After all self-tests pass, the RUN indicator flashes three times and then stays on. If any self-test fails, the ERROR red indicator stays on and pushes a fault event JSON frame to the host computer, which includes the fault code, fault description, and timestamp. During normal operation, the system automatically performs optocoupler and relay loop detection. After the relay is activated, the ADC voltage is read. If the voltage deviates from the 80V to 130V range, it indicates that the relay contact is oxidized or the voltage divider circuit is faulty. If a standard 110V level is applied to the digital channel and there is no status feedback for three consecutive times, it indicates that the optocoupler of the corresponding channel is faulty.

4. The fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The main control unit adopts an ESP32-S3-WROOM dual-core processor module, with built-in 8MB Flash, 8MB PSRAM, 2.4GHz WiFi4 and BLE5.0 communication modules, 2 12-bit ADCs, and FreeRTOS real-time operating system. It is used to divide system tasks into three independent tasks: tcp_server_task, dio_scan_task, and status_report_task, and to complete signal acquisition, relay logic control, wireless data transmission and reception, and fault diagnosis in parallel. The 16-channel digital input detection circuit is used to acquire 16 DC110V control level signals of the tested electric coupler, and sequentially connects a current-limiting resistor, a TLP281-4 optocoupler isolation chip, and two cascaded 74HC165 shift registers. It forms a 3-wire SPI bus through 3 GPIOs to complete the parallel acquisition of 16 high-voltage signals.

5. The fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The four-channel short-circuit continuity test circuit drives the transistor to control the on / off state of the electromagnetic relay by outputting the level of the main control GPIO. After the output terminal of the electromagnetic relay is connected to the resistor voltage divider sampling circuit, it is connected to the main control ADC pin to automatically sample, convert and determine the pass / fail of the short-circuit loop voltage under test.

6. The fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The four-level isolation power supply circuit adopts a layered isolation structure and parameters to achieve complete electrical isolation between the vehicle's DC110V high-voltage power supply system and the low-voltage main control logic circuit and relay drive circuit.

7. The fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The external wiring interface is divided into zones with digital Phoenix terminals, short-circuit test banana sockets, vehicle DC110V power supply terminals, and USB-C firmware debugging and burning interfaces, which are used to enable rapid on-site connection of the electrical coupler under test.

8. The fully automatic electric coupler detection and simulated coupling system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The status indication circuit is equipped with three independent LED status indicators, which are used to provide feedback on three types of status: power supply, wireless communication connection, and system fault alarm.

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