Ultra Portable Ride Quality Meter

Although the market clearly has several ride quality meters commercially available, the FRA wishes to investigate the possibility of designing a very compact and ultra portable ride quality meter (UPRQM) for allowing railroad inspectors to assess ride safety and quality on revenue trains as well as track locations responsible for the worst ride. Given the emergence of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology, sophisticated low power GPS chipsets, and ultra portable laptop computers, the ability to design and develop a compact ride quality meter meeting the FRA's requirements is more than feasible. The UPRQM designed with this emerging technology will allow the FRA to measure more conditions, more accurately, and locate them more precisely than the current market versions used in loss and damage prevention. Phase I of this SBIR includes the design and development of an ultra portable ride quality meter (UPRQM) prototype. The results will provide the justification and system design specification for developing a cost-effective and custom-manufactured production UPRQM in Phase II.