Method and system for vehicle communications

1. A method of processing data in a vehicle consist, comprising:

determining, via an electronic controller, a level of quality of a data set captured by a data capture device of a first vehicle of the vehicle consist, the level of quality determined based on two or more of a resolution, a bit rate, and a signal-to-noise ratio of the data set;

when the level of quality of the data set is higher than a threshold level, storing the data set in a first memory on the first vehicle;

when the level of quality of the data set is not higher than the threshold level, storing the data set in a second memory on the first vehicle, the second memory separate from the first memory; and

selectively off-boarding the data set for storage purposes via the electronic controller, the data set off-boarded to one or more of a second vehicle of the vehicle consist or a remote storage device offboard the vehicle consist based on the determined level of quality.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle consist includes a communication system configured to communicatively couple the first vehicle to other vehicles in the vehicle consist, the communication system further configured to communicatively couple the vehicle consist to the remote storage device, wherein off-boarding the data set for storage purposes includes,

during a first condition, off-boarding the data set from the first vehicle to the second vehicle in the vehicle consist via the communication system; and

during a second condition, off-boarding the data set from the first vehicle to the remote storage device via the communication system.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the communication system is linked to a network, and wherein the first condition includes a link quality of the communication system being lower than a threshold, and wherein the second condition includes the link quality of the communication system being higher than the threshold.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first condition includes the level of quality of the data set being above the threshold level, wherein the second condition includes the level of quality of the data set being below the threshold level, and wherein the level of quality of the data set is further determined based on a resolution of the data set.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising reducing a file size of the data set by selectively lowering a level of detail of one or more frames of the data set, and wherein the vehicle consist is a train, the first vehicle is a first locomotive of the train, and the second vehicle is a second locomotive of the train.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data set includes audio and video data generated by the data capture device of the first vehicle, the data capture device including at least an inward facing camera to capture data inside the first vehicle and an outward facing camera to capture data outside the first vehicle, and wherein the level of quality of the audio data is determined based on the bit rate and the level of quality of the video data is determined based on the resolution and the signal-to-noise ratio.

7. A method, comprising:

generating a first data set on a first vehicle of a vehicle consist, the first data set captured by a first data capture device of the first vehicle;

evaluating, via an electronic controller, a resolution of the first data set;

responsive to the resolution being below a quality threshold, capturing a second data set with a second data capture device of a second vehicle of the vehicle consist and storing the second data set on the second vehicle;

responsive to the resolution being above the quality threshold, storing the first data set in a crash-hardened memory on the first vehicle; and

after generating the first data set and before storing the first data set, reducing a file size of the first data set, via the electronic controller, by identifying background features in one or more frames of the first data set and replacing the identified background features with a simplified version of the identified background features.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising, if the resolution is above the quality threshold, off-boarding the first data set for storage purposes, and, when the resolution is below the quality threshold, storing the first data set in a standard data storage device of the first vehicle.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the resolution of the first data set is evaluated at the first vehicle, wherein off-boarding the first data set includes transmitting the first data set from the first vehicle to the second vehicle over a communication system of the vehicle consist and storing the transmitted first data set on the second vehicle, and wherein, when the resolution of the first data set is above the quality threshold, not capturing the second data set with the second data capture device.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the first vehicle is a first locomotive and the second vehicle is a second locomotive.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein reducing the file size of the first data set further comprises cropping one or more frames of the first data set.