Measurement of rail cross-section with solid-state sensor arrays

The application of light sectioning to the accurate measurement of a rail cross-section, from a train moving at high speed, is described. The intensity distribution through the thickness of the illuminating light sheet is deliberately graded, allowing the shape of the object to be recovered more accurately by interpolation of the sampled image. Rail profiles are extracted with a definition approximately ten-times better than that of the sampled image.