Road structure – process – or apparatus – Apparatus – With surface marking
Patent
1984-11-30
1991-10-08
Britts, Ramon S.
Road structure, process, or apparatus
Apparatus
With surface marking
239150, E01C 2316
Patent
active
050549596
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to apparatus for line marking roadways or the like. Typically the apparatus is intended to paint or repaint centre lines (both broken, solid or any combination thereof) and left and right hand roadway edge lines.
Conveniently line marking machines of this general type have either been manual or semi manual in operation. The speed of operation of such machines have depended on the ability of the operator to accurately push buttons to turn on and off spray guns to deposit paint at the required locations while at the same time accurately steering the machine to have the paint spray guns accurately over the existing lines, or in the right position on the roadway surface. Generally such machines have been unable to exceed about 20 km/hr.
The objective of the present invention is to provide apparatus capable of line marking roadways at speeds substantially above those possible with existing machines. It is believed that speeds of up to 80 km/hr may be obtained subject to road speed limits and the apparatus according to this invention has been operated at speeds of 60 km/hr. At this speed a conventional broken centre line having a 3 meter stripe and a 9 meter gap as one cycle will pass underneath the paint spray guns in approximately 1 second, that is the spray guns will be on for 0.21 seconds and will be off for 0.65 seconds. It is naturally appreciated that these time periods make it impossible for any manual operation of turning on or off the spray guns accurately. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to steer accurately following a desired line and the difficulty of this is greatly increased with increased speeds of operation.
The present invention provides a pavement line marking apparatus comprising a support means arranged to travel along said pavement in a predetermined direction, said support means carrying a marking detection element adapted to maintain surveillance of an area of pavement traversed by said detection element and paint applicator means being carried rearwardly by said marking detection element with respect to the direction of travel of said apparatus, said paint applicator means being arranged for movement in a generally transverse direction relative to said direction of travel, and said marking detection means being adapted to sense a marking on the pavement surface traversed by said detection means to thereby control movement and positioning of said paint applicator means. Conveniently the support means may comprise a boom extending forwardly of a vehicle adapted to move said boom along said pavement, said marking detection means being located at a free end of said boom and said paint applicator means being located at an intermediate position along said boom. The boom may, however be supported elsewhere from the operating vehicle such as on either side or extending rearwardly from the vehicle. A support element may be provided pivoted at a first end to said boom for movement about a generally vertical axis with said support element extending in a plane generally parallel to and beneath said boom, said paint applicator means being arranged for movement with said support element adjacent to the second end of said support element distant from said pivot connection to the boom. Conveniently the paint applicator means are mounted to a transversely extending carrier pivoted to the second end of the support element for movement about a generally vertical axis, said apparatus further including a second rigid connecting element pivoted at one end to said carrier and at a second end to said boom whereby said carrier, said support element, said connecting element and said boom form a parallelogram linkage such that upon pivoting of said support element about its pivot connection to said boom, said carrier for the paint applicator means is maintained generally perpendicular to said boom.
Preferably the marking detection means includes a line scan camera having a field of view extending transversely across the intended path of travel of said apparatus, said camera being
REFERENCES:
patent: 2691923 (1954-10-01), Huck
patent: 2756103 (1956-07-01), Creswell
patent: 3046854 (1962-07-01), Wilson
patent: 3092325 (1963-06-01), Brown, Jr. et al.
patent: 3101175 (1963-08-01), Brown, Jr.
patent: 3229660 (1966-01-01), McLucas et al.
patent: 3286928 (1966-11-01), Mitchell
patent: 3298352 (1967-01-01), Vrablik
patent: 3326098 (1967-06-01), Boettler
patent: 3477352 (1969-11-01), Harding et al.
patent: 3632042 (1972-01-01), Goulish et al.
patent: 3825185 (1974-07-01), Moon et al.
patent: 3882268 (1975-05-01), Ogawa et al.
patent: 4288034 (1981-09-01), Widmer et al.
Loughron Alan J.
Milligan Robert J.
Wilson James B. S.
Britts Ramon S.
Road Construction Authority
Smith Matthew
LandOfFree
Line marking apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Line marking apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Line marking apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-254209