NIT Surathkal signed MoU with Railways

Updated on: Monday, October 19, 2015

To reduce death tolls at unmanned level crossings, NIT, Surathkal faculty and students are working on a system to provide advance warning at unmanned level crossings.

The Indian Railways network has a large number of unmanned level crossings spread all over the country, especially in sparsely populated areas. Therefore, there is an urgent need to devise a simple system that can detect the presence of the train when it is at a fair distance - approximately 5 kilometres from the location of the level crossing and provide an audio-visual warning so that people, vehicles, people and livestock can move away from the location of the level crossing, said Prof U Sripati Acharya and Laxminidhi T, faculty members, ECE department, NIT, Surathkal.

The department has signed a memorandum of understanding with Palakkad division - Southern Railway. Explaining the technology approach, Prof Acharya of NIT, Surathkal said a lot vibration is generated when a train is in motion.

Prof Acharya of NIT, Surathkal said "We planned to install a sensitive vibration sensor/ acoustic sensor on the track/ sleeper near the level-crossing and constantly monitor its output. This will give us an understanding of the average signal amplitudes produced by different categories of traffic at the reference distance from the level crossing. Further, the output of the vibration sensor will be monitored by the microcontroller device which will process the readings and infer the presence of the train, its type and velocity.

"After sensing the unambiguous presence of the train, it will trigger the audio-visual warning system placed close to the level crossing. After the train crosses the level crossing, the system will reset itself and wait for the arrival of the next train," Prof Acharya of NIT, Surathkal added.

NIT Surathkal signed MoU with Railways

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