Railway Track Crack Detection

Railway Track Crack Detection

Arun Kumar R,Vanishree K, Shweta K,Nandini C, Shweta G

Department of Computer Science and Engineering Tontadarya College of Engineering

Gadag, India

Abstract-In India railways transportation service is the cheap and the majority convenient mode of passenger transport and also for long distance and suburban traffic. The main cause of the accidents happened in railways are railway track crossing and unrevealed crack in railway tracks. Therefore, there is a need to have new technology which will be robust, efficient and stable for both crack detection in railway track as well as object detection. This project discusses a Railway track crack detection using sensors and is a dynamic approach which combines the use of GPS tracking system to send alert messages and the geographical coordinate of location. Arduino Microcontrollers used to control and coordinate the activities of this device.

Keywords-GPS Module; Arduino Microcontroller; Railway Track

In previously existing system, the work is to be done manually, but the proposed system has a robot which will run automatically on the tracks. System having LED and LDR sensor assembly, but the main disadvantage is that the LED and LDR must be placed opposite to each other and also the environment needs to be perfect to detect the track. To overcome this

disadvantage, here sensors are used, which will detect the crack accurately. The existing system is slow, tedious and time consuming. This system has GSM and GPS module which will give the real time location or coordinates in the form of Short Message Service (SMS) to the nearest railway station.

1. INTRODUCTION

   Railway is one of the most significant transportation modes of our country but it is a matter of great sorrow that, railway tracks of our country are very prone. Thats why, a vast number of accidents are occurred every year due to this primitive type of railway tracks and as the consequences of those accidents we lose huge number of lives every year.

   These types of incidents motivate us to think over the above mentioned issue and take necessary steps to protect those lives. Through our proposed system, we need to establish more modern and secure railway system. Besides this, there is no such type of technology or system in our country which can stop the collision between two trains coming from the opposite direction of each other on the same track. We actually think over this matter and motivated to do so. Moreover natural disaster can throw any object on the rail track which cannot be removed very quickly in the remote area. We thought if our system can detect those object or barrier and inform to the control room then they can take necessary steps 3 to avoid accident. Figure1 depicts the crack on track. The Rail transport is growing at a rapid pace in India. It is one of the major mode of transport but still our facilities are not that accurate, safer as compared to international standards. A survey on the internet states that about 60% of all the railway accidents is due to derailments, recent measurements shows that about 90% are due to cracks on the rails. Hence, it is not safer for Human Life. This needs to be at the utmost attention. These goes unnoticed and the properly maintenance of tracks is not done.

   Figure. 1. Railway crack on track

   A. Train accident statistics

   TABLE I shows statistics of the number of injuries caused due to train accidents.

   Table-I: statistics of the number of injuries caused due to train accidents

   Figure 2 depicts the number of deaths due to rail accidents. As it can be observed from Figure 2, the number of deaths is increasing year to year. Hence there is a great need for

   Number of accidents

   Number of accidents

   technical solution to the problem of rail cracks.

   Number of accidents

   60

   40

   20

   0

   years

   Number of accidents

   60

   40

   20

   0

   years

   Fig. 2. Number Of deaths year wise

2. METHODOLOGY

   The main aim of project is to design the railway crack detection using Ultrasonic sensors. The project block diagram is shown in Figure 3, which contains microcontroller (Arduino), ultrasonic sensor, motor driver, motor, GPS module when the crack is detected, relevant geographical location coordinates will sent to the nearest station. This recording and sending of coordinates are done by GPS module. GPS network used by cell phones provides a low cost, long range wireless communication channel for applications that require connectivity rather than higher data rates. Infrared transmitter is one type of the LED which emits infrared rays generally called IR transmitter.

   Figure. 3. Rail track detection

   Ultrasonic sensor is used to detect the crack in the rail track with measuring the distance from track to sensor. Ultrasonic technique is the most effective method which detects cracks on a railway track. An android application will be developed to intimate about the rail cracks. As and when a rail crack is detected by the crack detection system, the corresponding loco pilot will be intimated through a pop-up message. This pop- up notification service will be implementing with the help of GPS module.

   A. Process of the rail track system

   The project block diagram is shown in Figure 4, which contains following process

   1. Initially the tracks are being continuously monitored with the help of sensor, which is used to detect the crack in the track.

   2. This monitoring is done with the help of ultrasonic sensor

      in order to sense the minor changes also which can be quite difficult with other sensors.

   3. Whenever the crack gets detected with the help of ultrasonic sensor it passes the alert of crack found to the Arduino microcontroller.

   4. The Arduino microcontroller will perform the process assigned to it accordingly.

   5. The process mainly includes positioning, sending and alerting through the help of GPS module.

   6. As the message gets delivered to the Railway Authority, the alert is to be taken into account and

      important measures must be taken by them in order to avoid future incidents and miss happenings which can lead to loss of human life and also to major injuries.

      Figure.4. Process Flowchart

3. ARCHITECTURE

   Figure. 5. Circuit diagram of system design

   The project block diagram is shown in Figure 5, which contains microcontroller (Arduino), ultrasonic sensor, motor driver, motor, GPS module. Initially the system will move on the track using motor ,motor is given power through a motor driver and commanded through Arduino controller. Whenever there is crack

   detection the motor will stop and the system will halt on the track. The crack is detected using ultrasonic sensor. After the crack detection the location data is to be sent to control room. GPS modules are used to get precise location of the car. This location is fed to controller. After successful delivery of message to control room, controller provides a signal to motor driver initiating the motor and hence car starts to move on the track. This process continues till the operator turns the system off.

4. MODEL IMPLEMENTATION

   1. Construction of circuit

      Figure. 6. Circuit Connection for System design

      The main objective is to define any railway track fault using this system, which is implemented in effective and will also function efficiently. This method will be helpful in regular track checking as it is more convenient than the handhld checking system. The current system has a railway labourers walking on the railway tracks and detecting the fault manually.In Figure 6 here we are using ardino for control action to make system we are connecting Ultrasonic senssors and IR sensors to detect the obstacle and we are connecting dc motors, gps module is used .This requires a lot of time and labour. So we are using aUltrasonic sensors and IR sensors for railway track crack detection. The testing vehicle consists of motors driven by a motor driver . The IR, and Ultrasonic sensor which is connected to the Arduino. Message is generated using GSM and GPS and will be sent to the nearby station.

   2. Arduino uno

      Arduino is an open source programmable circuit board based on top of easy to use hardware and software. The above Figure 7 depicts aarduino uno. It is tough in nature and can support the peripherals efficiently. It is centered on ATmega328. It has 14

      digital input/output pins 6 analog inputs, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. The power essential to run the board can supply through connecting it to the laptop using a USB cable or plugging an ACDC power supply.

      Figure. 7. Arduino Uno

   3. GPS module

   Figure. 8. GPS Modem

   A satellite navigation system used to position the ground place of an object. The above figure 8 shows a GPS modem. A GPS receiver calculates the position by timing the signals send by the GPS satellites high above the earth. The position is then displayed through moving map display or latitude and longitude. By the GPS module longitude and latitude value can exist as shown in figure 9.

   Figure. 9. Display of latitude and longitude value

   1. Motor Driver: L298N

      The L298N is a dual H-Bridge motor driver this allows speed and direction control of two DC motors at the same time. Motor L298N driver contains an IC as shown in the figure 10. The module can drive DC motors that have voltages among 5 and 35V, with a peak current capable of 2A.

      Figure. 10. Motor Driver (L298N)

   2. Generating a system

   In the system crack in the tracks is detected by means of sensor and Arduino microcontroller, measuring distance for two railroads. In this project we have used ultrasonic sensors to detect the crack. The below figure 11 shows system for detecting the crack using ultrasonic sensors. It uses to measure the distance between the two tracks. If any crack occurred in the track means latitude and longitude coordinates of the place are to be sent to the nearest raiway station or control room and ultrasonic sensor measured the

   of the processing technique. The crack detection can be made of two ways. They are Destructive Testing and Non- Destructive testing. It is part of a vision system, generating a crack map to support condition monitoring for buildings.

   distance between the two tracks if there is any variance found the message which contains coordinates of that particularplace will be sent to the nearest station or control room with the help of GPS module. This project is to be made in order to change the system of crack detection in railways which can be resulted out as not only cost-effective but also with good accuracy and time saving facility.

   Figure. 11. system to detect rail track

   1. Initially the tracks are being continuously monitored with the help of sensor, which is used to detect the crack inside the track.

   2. This monitoring is done with the help of ultrasonic sensor in order to sense the minor changes also which can be quite difficult with other sensors.

   3. Whenever the crack gets detected with the help of ultrasonic sensor it passes the alert of crack found to the Arduino microcontroller.

   4. The Arduino microcontroller will perform the process assigned to it accordingly.

   5. The process mainly includes positioning, sending and alerting through the help of GPS module.

   6. As message gets delivered to the Railway Authority, the alert is to be taken into account and important measures must be taken by them in order to avoid future incidents and miss happenings which can lead to loss of human life and also to major injuries.

5. APPLICATIONS

   Railway track crack detection system has been applied for different application areas are listed below.

   o AUTOMATIC CRACK CHECKING-

   Rail Crack detection is the process of detecting a crack in the structures using any

   The suggested method uses successively radiometric, geometric and contextual information. The vehicle draws power from the battery. The optical sensor is used to detect the crack in the railway track. Suppose any racks are in the

   track the vehicle will automatically stop.

   o WIRELESS APPLICATION

   Wireless application protocol (WAP) is the communications protocol that is used for wireless data access through the most mobile wireless network.

   WAP

   enhances wireless specification interoperability and facilitates instant connectivity between interactive wireless devices (such as mobile phones) and the Internet. Wireless Application Protocol is a technical standard for the accessing information over a mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that uses the protocols. Though WAP is a new technology, but it reuses the concepts found in the Internet.

   o RAILWAY TRACK DAMAGE DETECTION APPLICATIONS

   A railway damage detection and measurement system using neural networks. Railway- defects and damages often cause train accidents. Experimental result shows that this neural network based measurement system has high precision and is suitable for online railway damage detection and measurement applications. A list of methods used to detect flaws in railways: Ultrasound -is the most popular method. Eddy current inspections – great for surface flaw & near surface flaws. Magnetic Particle Inspection- used for detailed manual inspections. Ultrasonic sensor is used to detect the crack on the railway track by not receiving the echo from the track; if the echo sound is received then no crack is detected on the track. The output of ultrasonic sensors is given to the microcontroller, which is connected to the GPS, motor driver IC.

6. CONCLUSION

   As per the study the existing systems are time consuming as well as uneconomical. The proposed system is not only overcome these problems but also improve accuracy and crack detection in rails. It is the most economical solution provided in order to achieve good results of railways of our country in order to minimize the stats of accidents caused. There by possible to save precious lives of passengers and loss of economy. It also saves the time and money for identification of crack.

7. REFERENCES

1. A. Rizvi, P. Khan and D. Ahmad, "Crack Detection In Railway Track Using Image Processing", International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology., vol. 3, no. 4, 2017.

2. S. Srivastava, R. Chaurasia, S. Abbas, P. Sharma and N. Singh, "Railway Track Crack Detection Vehicle", International Advanced Research Journal in Science, Engineering and Technology, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 145-148, 2017.

3. [3] K.Bhargavi and M. Janardhana Raju "Railway Track Crack Detection Using Led-Ldr Assembly, International Journal of Advanced Research in Electronics and Communication Engineering (IJARECE), vol. 3, no. 9, pp. 1230-1234, 2014.

4. [4] B. Siva Ram Krishna, D. Seshendia, G. Govinda Raja, T. Sudharshan and K. Srikanth, "Railway Track Fault DetectionSystem By Using IR Sensors And Blutooth Technology", Asian Journal of Applied Science and Technology (AJAST), vol. 1, no. 6, pp. 82-84, 2017.

5. [5] P.Navaraj, "Crack Detection System For Railway Track By Using Ultrasonic And Pir Sensor", vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 126-130, 2014.

6. [6] D.Narendhar Sigh and D. Naresh, "Railway Track Crack Detection And Data Analysis", vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 1859-1863, 2017.

7. [7] 2017. Available: https://m.timesofindia.com/india/586- train- accidents-in-last-5-years-53-due-to derailments/amp_articleshow/60141578.cms.