The paper describes the method for determining the position of the contact wire of electrified railways using microwaves. The method is based on the triangulation system of two georadars and allows to determine a contact wire zigzag and height from the rail head. The proposed method is all-weather with the possibility of continuous monitoring of the overhead contact wire in plan and profile with the opportunity to automate the processing and signaling abnormalities.

Keywords: railroad contact line, contact wire location, GPR, automatic control systems

The paper studies the possibility of quantitative processing of the GPR data for determining the dielectric permittivity and conductivity of a medium (soil samples). Experimental studies are made using radargrams of soil samples with specified values of moisture and conductivity. New methods of quantitative processing of radargrams are proposed in this work to determine the dielectric permittivity and conductivity of soils. The methods were successfully tested on various sections of Russian railways net.

Keywords: layered road profiling, GPR, soil moisture, soil layers profiling, soil conductivity