Sambalpur: A team of students at the Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT) here has achieved a major feat by developing an Artificial Intelligence-enabled system that can detect even small cracks on the railway tracks a kilometer ahead and prevent accidents.
Under the system, the railway track is equipped with a vibration sensor – PVDF — which is integrated with an NFC/Bluetooth module. Real-time data transmission takes place to trains in the zone. The specially developed algorithm as also the software helps in analyzing the results and giving a warning signal to the train driver.
The system also sends an alert signal to the nearest railway office from the train in case of fault detection.
The current methodologies under consideration for safety monitoring of railway tracks require involvement of large manpower and an ultrasonic detector. A new Satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) technology has been developed and is under lab tests for improvements before it is introduced formally for rail safety.
But no new system so far had the potential for real-time monitoring and warning a running train on the track, the team of students noted.
“Envisioning our Prime Minister’s aim for introduction of high-speed Bullet trains, it’s important for us to consider the safety of our citizens. We tried to develop a robust system to identify cracks/faults even as small as 1cm in real time,” said Biswajit Padhi, a team member.
Sandeep Kumar Mishra, another member working on the software part, said, “We are looking forward to patent our software (specially developed algorithms) which cannot only analyze and detect faults but also slow down trains in case of a lack of manual effort. The system can be introduced in the near future.”
PNN
