AUTOMATIC REAL-TIME RAILWAY FISHPLATE MONITORINGSYSTEM FOR EARLY WARNING USING IOT
1,2,3,4UG Student/ Dept. of EEE, Srinivasa Ramanujan Institute of Technology, Andhra Pradesh
5Assistant Professor/ Dept. of EEE, Srinivasa Ramanujan Institute of Technology, Andhra Pradesh
Abstract - Asthepopulation is increasingdaybyday,number of trains are also increasing. People would like to prefer rail transportation other than road transportation. With the increase in count, safety requirements are not maintained properly. Manyrailaccidentsareprevailingnow-a-daysdueto thenegligenceofhigherauthorities.Themaincausefortherail accidentsisderailment.Thefundamentalreasonforderailment is loosening of fishplates. Therefore, keeping an eye on alignment of rails and fishplates is very important. Here, a continuous monitoringsystem ispickedup basedonIoT which can keep track of every fish bolt present in the system. The indicated system uses GPS for tracking the exact latitude and longitude of fault location. This system consists of microcontroller which can control the working of all the components embedded on it. Proximity sensors are used to detect the loosened fishplates. Node MCU is used for the wirelesscommunicationinwhichawi-fichipisembeddedonit. The number of accidents going to decrease by using this proposed system.
Key Words: Node MCU ESP8266, Arduino ATMEGA328P, Blynk IoT Mobile Application, Proximity Sensor, GPS, Solar Panel.
1. INTRODUCTION
Inthispopulatedworld,railwayshavebecometheprimary meansoftransportation.Railcommunicationhasbeenused bybothpeopleandthegoods.Theprobabilityofaccidentshas been increased due to increase in population. When we considerthenumberofrailaccidentsinFY2014-2022asper thestatisticsreleasedbyIndiangovernment,itisrecognized as34.Wearelosingmanylivesduetotherailwayaccidents. So,monitoringtherailfishplatesisnecessarytaskinorderto maintain safety. Basically, a rail fishplate is a steel or iron platewhichslidesamongthecornersoftworailstomaintain alignment.Fishplateissimplyametalplateusedtoconnect twofishplates.Physical monitoringisatimetakingprocess andnoteconomical Toovercomethisproblem,wehavecome up with an idea which takes less time and gives high reliability.ArduinoUNOis an embedded system which can storeandrecordthedataprocessedbydifferentsensors.At theinputside,wecanuseproximitysensorsandultrasonic sensorstodetectthefaultlocation.Attheoutputside,GPS and Node MCU are used to track the exact latitude and longitude of the fish bolt and to ensure a wireless communication with the cloud networks. So, by this
automated system we can reduce the number ofaccidents thatareoccurringduetothederailment.
1.1 OBJECTIVE
Themajorobjectivesfordevelopingtheprototypemodelfor fishplatemonitoringaretodetectifthefishboltsareinthe rightplaceornotandtotracetheexactlocationofthefault throughtheGPSmodule.
2. PROPOSED SYSTEM
Inthisproposedsystem,anIoTbasedsensorfaultdetectionis used.Additiontothata user-friendly mobileapplicationis usedtoknowthelocationofthefaultandexactlatitudeand longitude.Italsoshowsthatsomeoneisonthetrackifany person is standing on the track. The fault location can be highlightedinthemobileapplicationfromanyarea where internetisavailable.Thepositionoffishplatescanbeknown by the wireless communication through ESP8266 Wi-Fi moduleandthesameinformationcanbestoredinthecloud serverandcanbecommunicatedwiththebasestation.
TheproposedsystemcomprisesofESP8266Wi-Fimodule, Node MCU, Inductive proximity sensor, Ultrasonic sensor, Solarpanel,GPSandArduinoUNO.Thewi-fichipwhichis embeddedonthenodemicrocontrollerunitisconnectedto thehotspot of the host. When the fish bolt is rotated, the proximitysensor will detect the rotation and shares this information to theArduinouno.Iftherotationisuptothe mark, then Arduinocommands GPS and wi-fi module to communicatewiththe basestation.Warningsignal issent untilthefaultiscleared.Thisproposedsystemhasonemore applicationwhichusesultrasonicsensortowarntrack.
2.1 BLOCK DIAGRAM
Fromtheblockdiagram,
ThewholeoperationofcomponentsiscontrolledbyArduino. In this system, android application called Blynk IoT communicates with the wi-fi module embedded on microcontrollerunit.TheoperationofGPSandthesensors canbeobservedintheapplication.
GPSandwi-fimodulereceivethecommandsfromArduino microcontrollerascodedinit.Theresultscanbeobservedin theIoTplatformaseitherdangermodeoridlemode.Itwill
showdangermodeuntilthefaultiscleared.Theprocedure canbeexplainedinfivesteps.
1.Detection of rotation of fish bolts through proximity sensors.
2.Processingofdatabyembeddedsystem.
3.Transmissionofdatathroughwi-fimodule.
4.Enhancingthedatatocloudstorage.
5.Distributionofdatathroughbasestation.
b)Ultrasonic
Anultrasonicsensorisadevicethatdetectsanobjectand measuresthedistancetoit.Itmeasuresdistancebyemitting ultrasound and receiving the wave that the objectreflects. Thesearealsocalledasultrasonictransceiversbecausethe receiverandtransmitterintoasingleunit
Theautomatedsystemisdesignedbyusingdifferenttypesof sensorslikeproximitysensorsandultrasonicsensorswhich areconnectedtothefishplates.Thesesensorsaretheinput deviceswhichcanactastransducersi.e.,thedeviceswhichcan convertone form of energy into another form. Here, the proximitysensorsoutputiselectricalenergy.
2.3 COMPONENTS
a)
Aproximitysensorisanon-contacttypeofsensorhelpfulin thedetectionofmetallicobjects.Itcansenseferrousaswell asnon-ferrousmaterial.Thesensingrangeisupto100mm. Wealreadyhavemechanicalswitchesavailableforposition detectionbuttheyarecontactdetectionswitches.Thismeans if the objects getin touch with the switchonly then it will operate.Thisisnotinthecaseofinductiveproximitysensor. Wearingoutofmechanicalpartsisthemajorissuethatisnotin thecaseofaninductivesensor.Inductiveproximitysensors havesolidstateassembly–nomovingparts.
c)
ItisaGlobalPositioningSysteminwhichitisusedtotrack theexactlatitudeandlongitude.Wheneverrotationoffish bolt is identified by the proximity sensor then the microcontroller commands the GPS. GPS consists of GPS antenna.
d)Solar
Solar panels are devices whichare used toabsorb thesun raysandconvertthemintoelectricityorheat.Asolarpanelis actually a collection of solar cells, which can be used to generateelectricitythroughphotovoltaiceffect.Thesecells are arranged in a grid-like pattern on the surface of solar panels.Aphotovoltaicmoduleisapackagedandconnected assemblyof6x10solarcells.Solarpowerhasbecomeavery popularsourceofenergyoverthepastdecadeorsoaspeople
havecometorecognizejusthowgooditis.It’snotonlyafree sourceofenergy,eco-friendly.
ArduinoUNOisan8-bitmicrocontrollerbasedonAVRRISC architecture.ArduinoUNOboardhave14digitalinputpins outofwhichitcontains6PWMoutputpinsandthe analog inputpinsarehaving6.i.e.,fromA0toA5.ATmega328isone kindofsingle-chipmicrocontroller anditisbasedon8-bit RISC(ReducedInstructionSetComputing)processor.Ithas operatingvoltageof5v.ItwillgeneratethePWMsignals.
3.1
Fig-9,10,11showstheresultoftheconducted experiment. Thesefiguresexplainthemonitoringsystemintheandroid application (Blynk IoT). Fig-9 shows that when a bolt is rotated,itshowstheexactlatitudeandexactlongitudeand alsoindicatesdangermode.Infig-10thealertmessagewas shownassomeoneisonthetrackwhichcanbedetectedby ultrasonicsensor.Thefig11showstheidlemodei.e.,nobolt isrotatedandthereisnochanceoflooseningoffishplates.
It is an open-source software and hardware developing environment.ItisembeddedwithESP8266wi-fimodule.It consistsofpowerpins,I2Cpins,GPIOpins,UARTpins,SPI pins,PWMpins,SDIOpins,Controlpins.
This proposed system was evaluated by range of proximity sensor and the measured distance between the proximity sensorand fishplate. The experimental setup is shownbelow.
4.CONCLUSION
ThisprojecthaspresentedanIoTbasedrealtimeautomated systemthatcanmonitortheconditionoftheboltsoftherail fishplatesandsendwarningtothecontrolroomsothatthe concernedauthoritycanmakerapiddecisiontoavoidsevere accident.Theproposedsystemisaverysimpleandcosteffective onethatcanbeeasilyimplemented.Thisisafairlyhighaccuracy compared to the existing methods. The project has introducedanewdesignofanproximitysensors.Theuseof
microcontroller along with wi-fi module communication enablesloosenedboltlocationdetectionwithhighprecision using GPS, reliable data transmission and overall cost reduction. Implementation of the proposed faultdetection system is expected to havea significanteffectinrespectof safetyandreducethenumberofaccidentsbyahighmargin.
REFERENCES
[1] P. Yilmazer, A. Amini, and M. Papaelias. The structural health condition monitoring of rail steel using acoustic emissiontechniques.InProc.51stAnnu.Conf.NDT,pages112,2012.
[2] D. Bowness, A. C.Lock, W. Powrie, J. A. Priest,and D. J. Richards.Monitoringthedynamicdisplacementsofrailway track.ProceedingsoftheInstitutionofMechanicalEngineers, PartF:JournalofRailandRapidTransit,221(1):13-22,2007.
[3]H.Tsunashima,Y.Naganuma,A.Matsumoto,T.Mizuma, andH.Mori.Conditionmonitoringofrailwaytrackusinginservicevehicle.Reliabilityandsafetyinrailway,12:334-356, 2012.
[4] A. Sabato and C. Niezrecki. Feasibility of digital image correlation for railroad tie inspection and ballast support assessment.Measurement,103:93-105,2017.
[5]K.Ghosh,A.Singhi,andC.R.Chaudhuri.Developmentof fishplate tampering detection system for railway security basedonwirelesssensornetwork.Int.J.Comput.Appl,2:2934,2011