IAETSD

1. REAL TIME IMPLEMENTATION OF RAILWAY
TRACK FAULT DETECTING SYSTEM USING IR
AND ULTRASONIC TECHNOGY
GITABASHYAN R *1
, SHANMUGAM P *2
1
Final Year, B.E., Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering
2
Prefinal Year, B.E., Electrical and Electronics Engineering
*
National Engineering College, India
1
rgbashyan@gmail.com
2
shanmugameeenec@gmail.com
Abstract- Railway network is one of the world’s largest
transportation network aiming to provide continual
access to all people. In the modern trend, the quality of
service aims for secured travel. As the rail network face
adverse weather throughout the year, the rail material
tends to lose its strength. Hence continual maintenance is
required to ensure the proper functioning of trains. These
maintenance are done manually by technical and labour
team which involves testing, analyzing and report
submission. The intention of this paper is to provide cost
effective and regular testing of rail tract by autonomous
robot designed in embedded system. This model of
manless Non-Destructive Testing robot uses Infrared
sensor and Ultrasonic Sensing elements. With the
implementation of this system the whole railway network
will provide secured journey to the people and save all
lives and properties.
Keywords- IR Sensor, Ultrasonic Sensor, Hall Effect
Sensor, Microcontroller, GSM, GPS.
I. INTRODUCTION
In India, the tracks are more than 10,000 of km. Due to
frequent climatic changes, the tracks lose their stability. So,
cracks are formed in the tracks .We know that tracks are
expanded during summer, contract during winter and there is
a possible of corrosion in rainy season. So, the cracks are
further expanded to produce a large gap between the tracks.
Also by the movement of the train above it. The main
objective of the paper is to check the track and to detect the
cracks present in the track. The people are working
scientifically to overcome this problem.
This paper works on testing of cracks using IR sensor and
Ultrasonic Sensor, the preprogrammed Microcontroller
measures the intensity of defect and send the signal to
railway control room via GSM module. The robotic vehicle
is equipped with GPS facility so that when high intense crack
is detected the maintenance team will reach the exact location
and take all further processes mainly including exact fault
dimension, depth and its nature. This system provide two
levels of signal, a threshold signal (dangerous level) and a
typical fault signal (acceptable level). Railway monitors the
process continuously and will take all necessary action.
II. NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING ELEMENTS
The interconnecting of the elements is the challenging one,
because the output of the IR receiver is never linearly
connected to the microcontroller input for its safety purpose.
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2. So, we prefer the capacitor and resistor combination
interfacing with the IR transmitter and receiver. In addition,
the microcontroller control the motor. So, we use a motor
controller to control the motor, we can also use optocoupler
and motor circuit to control the DC motor. The optical
incremental encoder is used to count the number of
revolutions. One revolution is equal to one bit. In this way,
we can calculate the distance moved by the robot vehicle
above the track.
III. BLOCK DIAGRAM
By replacing the optical incremental encoder by
optoelectronic instrument we get long range distance
measurement and also compatible form for microcontroller.
The alarm is coupled to it for alerting the railway staffs. The
LCD module is interconnected to the system to display the
distances and test level.
Motor
Driver
Railway
Control
Room
Microcontroller
Receiver
RS
232
Cable
IR
Transmitter
ALARM
GSM
Module
LCD
Module
Optoelectronic
Displacement
Instrument
Motor
Robot platform
Ultra
sonic
sensor
Battery and
voltage
regulator
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3. IV. BLOCK EXPLANATION AND OPERATION
The inputs are IR transmitter and receiver, ultrasonic sensor,
optoelectronic displacement module. The outputs are motor
driver, LCD module, GSM module and DC motor. The robot
is placed on the rail track. The testing process starts
automatically by the control of PIC controller. The IR and
Ultrasonic sensors work simultaneously. These sensors test
for any crack, damage in the track. These signals are
converted to digital and fed to PIC, here the controller is
preprogrammed with some threshold data, when the sensors
outputs are above the threshold value (dangerous crack) this
information is immediately send to Railway Control Room
with alarm warning and details about distance from station.
The vehicle location is tracked by the GPS system attached
with it. If the test value is below the threshold value then the
information are send to control room. Then vehicle moves to
next step. The distance from the station is measured by long
range optoelectronic displacement instrument. Both test
result and distance is send via GSM module to the control
room. The robot vehicle proceeds to test whole track step by
step using DC motor driven by PIC command.
Microcontrollers- Microcontrollers are widely used in
embedded systems products. Microcontroller is a
programmable device. A microcontroller has a CPU in
addition to a fixed amount of RAM, ROM, I/O ports and a
timer embedded all on a single chip. The fixed amount of on-
chip ROM, RAM and number of I/O ports in
microcontrollers makes them ideal for many applications in
which cost and space are critical.
PIC 16F877A microcontroller- IC PIC 16F877A is an 8-bit
microcontroller with 8k x 14-bit flash program memory, 368
bytes of RAM and many others extra peripherals like ADC,
USART, timers, compare capture and pulse-width
modulation modules, and analog comparators. It is based on
the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture.
The microcontroller processes the sensor output to compute
the fault level. The internal ADC of the microcontroller is
used to convert the analog output of the sensor into its digital
equivalent value. The internal ADC of the microcontroller
has eight channels of analog inputs and gives 10-bit digital
output.
V. SENSOR
A sensor is a converter that measures a physical quantity and
converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or
by an electronic instrument. IR transmitter and receiver is a
sensor using to detect the gap between the tracks. It originally
used for operating the device wirelessly from a short line-of-
sight distance. Commonly, remote controls are Consumer
IR devices used to issue commands from a distance to
televisions or other consumer electronics such as stereo
systems, DVD players and dimmers. Remote controls for
these devices are usually small wireless handheld objects
with an array of buttons for adjusting various settings such
as television channel, track number, and volume. In fact, for
the majority of modern devices with this kind of control, the
remote control contains all the function controls while the
controlled device itself has only a handful of essential
primary controls. Most of these remote controls communicate
to their respective devices via infrared signals and a few
via radio signals. Earlier remote controls in 1973
used ultrasonic tones. The remote control code, and thus the
required remote control device, is usually specific to a
product line, but there are universal remotes, which emulate
the remote control made for most major brand devices. The
main technology used in home remote controls
is infrared (IR) light. The signal between a remote control
handset and the device it controls consists of pulses of
infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.
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4. Ultrasonic transducers[1] used in the time domain
transducers measure the time of flight and the velocity of
longitudinal, shear, and surface waves. Time domain
transducers measure density and thickness, detect and locate
defects, and measure elastic and mechanical properties of
materials. These transducers are also used for interface and
dimensional analysis, proximity detection, remote sensing,
and robotics.
The transmitted wave reflects back to receiver when there is a
change in propagating medium. Hence when crack, hole is
present in the material then the echo pulse is reflected back to
receiver, generating the fault detection signal. Non-contact
type ultrasonic transducers use high air impedance matching
design and output signal conditioning circuit which is easily
adopted in this system.
VI.MOTOR DRIVER:
These devices consist of two independent voltage
comparators that are designed to operate from a single power
supply over a wide range of voltages. Operation from dual
supplies also is possible as long as the difference between the
two supplies is 2 V to 36 V, and VCC is at least 1.5 V more
positive than the input common-mode voltage. Current drain
is independent of the supply voltage. The outputs can be
connected to other open-collector outputs to achieve wired-
AND relationships. The LM193 is characterized for operation
from –55°C to 125°C. The LM293 and LM293A are
characterized for operation from –25°C to 85°C. The LM393
and LM393A are characterized for operation from 0°C to
70°C. The LM2903 is characterized for operation from –
40°C to 125°C. The LM2903Q is tested from –40°C to
125°C and is manufactured to demanding automotive
requirements.
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5. VII. ADVANTAGES
1. Easy to construct
2. More useful in remote areas.
3. Easily and Automatic operation
4. More savings in economy
5. Avoid accidents
6. Frequently used
VIII. FURTHER APPLICATIONS
1. Military applications
2. Landmine detection
3. Firing situation
4. Flight runway
5. Boiler Tube
6. Refinery pipe line
IX. CURRENT RESEARCHES
Research about the conventional methods of railway crack
detection include mechanical system and eddy current based
approaches, we find that they are expensive in nature which
does not warrant their use in the current scenario.
X. CONCLUSION
The implementation of this automatic testing technology in
the railways is easy and efficient in flaw detection, Hence on
using this system the government can get more benefits like
easy, automatic and cost effective testing of flaws in the rail
track. We can handle one of the serious concern of today’s
leap in the number of accidental deaths and save more lives
and properties.
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