ARGUS

Argus collects and compiles data from various types of wayside vehicle performance monitoring devices, to create a composite view of railway vehicle performance. This view can be selectively modified by the user to create custom event notifications and reports for individual vehicle performance or overall fleet performance.

The ability of Argus to collate the information is central to lower maintenance costs through easy identification of where problems occur. With Argus, the driver or Train Control can quickly identify which rail cart has a problem and even which axle is experiencing problems. Argus also pushes that information downstream to maintenance programs to allow the defective rail cart to be cut out or for the information to be used for predictive maintenance purposes.

Argus provides the timeline of when problems occur, enabling faster determination of the sequence of events preceding and following an alert or incident.

Argus will identify communications or telemetry failures in real-time.

Argus is an industry-standard platform used extensively by the major mining companies. The system is deployed at BHP Billiton, FMG, Rio Tinto and Queensland Rail to provide them with the most effective method of identifying potential problems and protecting their assets.

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• Communicates with any interface
• Uses a high-throughput, low latency internal communications system
• Provides inter-module communications at extremely high message counts per second
• Can host an unlimited number of telemetry devices
• Is restrained only by the host platform. 

Argus has been developed to allow the maximum possible up-time through the concept of modularisation. This is achieved by dynamic loading and unloading of each module, and dynamic reconfiguration.

This provides maximum up-time by:

• Allowing modules to be added, upgraded or removed individually, without taking the whole system down.
• Allowing live addition, removal, and reconfiguration of telemetry stations.

Argus contains extensive reporting mechanisms, and can interface to any type of notification system. This provides live exception reports, as well as periodic and ad-hoc performance statistics.

All reports open a new item in the Windows Task bar allowing easy switching between reports.

All reports list the train name, which includes HBD site, time and direction, as the title of the window.

All items are colour coded to help alarm or fault detection.

All report windows can be adjusted in size and data viewed to allow larger or split monitors to be used to full effect.

The Argus user interface combines powerful cutting edge features, with easy to use web based technology. This provides sophisticated, yet user-friendly access to the features exposed.

Secure login provides access to the system’s features in three levels:

• Administrative
• Technical
• Observational

The site view allows a quick overview of an entire site. This allows the user to quickly determine areas of interest. Argus is run as a dynamic site – this means that as the status of equipment changes, users will see this live on their site view via colour changes and event and alarm logs.

• Red: Category 1 warning
• Yellow: Category 2 alert
• Green: Functioning to requirements
• Grey: Inert device 

There are two types of alarms generated by the Argus system to Train Control. These are State-based alarms, and Train based alarms.

State-based alarms will be generated and cleared by the field equipment in response to a change of state. This includes:

• High voltage
• Low Voltage
• Charge Fail
• Dragging Equipment Detector (DED)
• Microlock (MLK)  Stream Flow Detector (SFD)
• HBD Site Communication Fail (HDB Equip)

Train based alarms are generated when an alarm is detected on a train. This includes:

• Hot Bearing alarms
• Hot Wheel alarms

As there is no subsequent way for these alarms to restore themselves, the user must acknowledge each alarm in turn, to clear the state. To do this, the user selects the ‘Clear Train Alarms’ option from the ‘Alarms’ menu. This will restore the site bit in the Train Control system, clearing the alarm for that site. The user should be authorised by Train Control before performing this operation, to ensure that the train with the alarm has been checked.

The Event Log is a list containing any events Argus considers important.

Important events include:

• Train processing successes and errors
• Communications issues and events
• Debug information if sub systems set to ‘verbose’ reporting
• Alarms set or clear events.

The list is echoed in a log file, generated on a daily basis and stored in the log file folder. The list is intended to allow a user to review significant events. Each item is colour coded:

• Red: Critical fault
• Yellow: Warning
• Green: Functioning to requirements
• White: Information

Each item is listed with the type, time and details of the event as it occurred (in real time)