IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology

eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308

CAN PROTOCOL DRIVERLESS TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEM

V. Amala Rani1, T.V. Subha Austalekshmi2
1

Asst Professor, Department of Electronics and Instrumentation, Sathyabama University, Tamilnadu, India
Asst Professor, Department of Electronics and Instrumentation, Sathyabama University, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract
This paper addresses the train running autonomously without any human operators. Provides information to avoid train to train
collisions, over speeding problem, signaling errors and unmanned railway crossing incidents. This afford a way for a passenger to
know the train location, speed and direction in real time from anywhere in India through his mobile phone.CAN protocol interconnect
all the train compartments with embedded network to ensure safety and security of passengers during disasters occurring within
trains such as bomb blasts and fire outbreaks. This make obtainable way for a passenger to know the train location, speed and
direction in real time from anywhere in India through his mobile phone. The CAN node is used to ensure the safety and comfort of the
passengers. It also have audio speakers to inform the passengers about the approaching station and also to provide alert messages
during a crisis situation.

Key Words: mobile phone, CAN protocol

----------------------------------------------------------------------***-----------------------------------------------------------------------1. INTRODUCTION
Generally when we are on railway platform waiting for a train,
eager to know about the current location and expected time of
arrival of train. Now, for this we completely depend on
announcements made by the enquiry staff. At present the
information of the running trains are monitored with the help
of manual monitoring which is not perfect. In this project the
exact location and speed movement of the train can be
monitored in real time basis. This project has been developed
for a train which provides precise location through interactive
mode on mobile phones, laptops, leading to the elimination for
telephone enquiry. The new classification would be more
useful all through winter or foggy endure stipulation as
passenger hardly get in sequence about Passenger trains
because this project use GPS data to monitor trains and offer
genuine time in order about the position of the train to users.
This proposed work aims to design a system that run the train
autonomously without human operators and also provides alert
messages during crisis situation. Here we propose an approach
to achieve efficiently design user friendly for driverless train
control system application especially target at preventing
accidents such as train to train collisions, over speeding
problem, unmanned railway crossing incidents etc.

2. LITERATURE SURVEY
CAN technology is adopt by most automotive industries
nowadays. As per Chuliang the paper presents a virtual
instrument based control system for research and enlargement
of the automotive and railway industries. This resourceful low
rate proficient and realistic arrangement contains the
applications of data acquisition, controller area network
(CAN), harmful engine exhaust emissions reduction, and spot

welding[1]. The system must be proficient to be employed in

various automation industries due to its flexibility. The
detailed applications of the system presented here, addresses
the monitoring of car engine exhaust emissions, CAN
application in reducing car engine exhaust emissions and
monitoring of automotive and railway spot welding. The
disadvantages are the data as of the gas sensors is require to be
collected and compared for each processing. The virtual
control system is used for only three applications such as
DAQ, CAN and harmful engine exhaust emissions reduction.
According to Chuliang, in this paper introduces a built
network for data CAN transmission following the data
acquisition from the necessary temperature sensors mounted
on a car engine and a train bogie in two respective tests[2].
LABVIEW is the only useful software during this network
design based in the lead of the industrial widely use. The
network should be capable to be functional in various
transportation industries suitable to its elasticity, extensibility
and achievability. The disadvantages are separate PCs are
used to operate as DAQ and CAN system for data sharing
instead of using both the system in same PC.By using only
LAN network we can transfer the data from DAQ PC to CAN
PC.More CAN nodes cannot be extended to build a complex
and functional CAN network This article introduce a method
by means of ARM as the main controller and double gateway
in a control computer in a car[3]. This system make use of the
high presentation of ARM, high speed reduction of CAN bus
communication control networks and instrument control as a
result as to get full sharing of data between nodes and improve
their collaborative work. This system features efficient data
transfer among different nodes in the practical applications.
The system leads to easy data sharing but it is done between
different control systems[4]. The process maintenance is hard
to carry out. The electric system uses a single point to point

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IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology

communication approach which results in large cabling

problem.

3. EXISTING SYSTEM
RAIL RADAR is the new technology launched by Indian
Railways recently, which updates train position on a map
every time it crosses a station on its way. This system does not
provide real-time tracking since each station is located at least
1 km apart in cities and 10-20 km apart in remote places. It
does not use GPS which is a major drawback because the train
location is virtually unknown until it reaches the next station
that may be 5 to 20 minutes away. HUMAN ERROR is one of
the major reasons for train accidents. Every year we end up
with at least 2 or 3 major train accidents purely based on
human errors. Train to train collisions, over speeding trains
and signaling errors are typical cases where hundreds of lives
have been lost. Most of the time the reason would be on errors
from drivers and signal operators. Another important problem
is SAFETY AND SECURITY of passengers within trains.
Terrorist organizations want to make the country unsafe and
one of their ways is to plant bombs and explosives in of lives.
The driver has got no way to know the happenings trains.
Although security is available in railway stations, it is still not
enough to prevent such attacks. Also, we hear news such as
fire outbreak that originated in one compartment that quickly
spread to other part of the trains resulting in loss of huge
number behind the engine. Lives are also lost when
people/vehicles try to cross the tracks without noticing an
approaching train. Human error is one of the major reasons for
train accidents. The onboard passengers are not able to know
the approaching station

eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308

The onboard disaster prevention network connects all the

compartments of the train with the main control node over
CAN bus (Controller Area Network). CAN is a networking
protocol widely used in automotive applications to
interconnect different parts of the vehicle. It is also being used
in industrial automation networks. In unmanned railway
crossings, truck/car/humans/animals may cross a railway line.
The train control system oversees this and can adapt to slow
down the speed accordingly. This overrides the speed setting
from the server. It has a front SONAR ultrasonic range finder
for this purpose. The advantages are (i) a passenger can query
the location of a train via SMS. (ii) Accuracy of GPS location
is very high. (iii) Centrally controlled route server. (iv)
automatic speed adjustment

5. BLOCK DIAGRAM

4. PROPOSED SYSTEM
Driverless train control system operates on the principle of a
central railway server and communication devices fixed in
each trains. All the trains on that particular route will update
the central railway server with their location, speed and
direction information. The train unit has an onboard GPS
module and a GSM module. A passenger can simply query the
location of a train via SMS from his mobile phone. The train
unit will reply to the user mobile with the GPS coordinates of
the present location it is traveling The server collects all such
information, calculates the optimum speed of travel for each
train and sends this information to those trains on the route.
The train control system will send its present GPS location
information periodically (typically every 30 sec) to the central
railway server. This message will immediately be
acknowledged with a reply message from the server that will
indicate the speed to travel. The train control system will
automatically adjust its speed to the speed indicated by the
server. The railway server is a software application that will be
running on a secured PC environment.

It has a front SONAR ultrasonic range finder to check any

truck/car/humans/animals crossing a railway line and the train
control system oversees this and can adapt to slow down the
speed accordingly for this purpose.The onboard disaster
prevention network connects all the compartments of the train
with the main control node over CAN bus (Controller Area
Network). Each CAN node has got a variety of sensors and
devices to ensure the safety and comfort of the passengers.
The LPC11C14 are ARM cortex-M0 based microcontrollers
for embedded applications feature a high level of integration
and low power consumption. The train unit have an onboard
GPS and GSM module. The train control system send its
present GPS location information at times to the central
railway server. By using SONAR, we know how to detect the
obstacles and lessen the severity of accidents. The onboard
disaster prevention network connects all the compartments of

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Volume: 03 Issue: 05 | May-2014, Available @ http://www.ijret.org

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IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology

the train with the main control node over CAN bus. Metal
detector sensor detects explosives by sensing the variations in
the magnetic field around it. A digital MEMS magnetometer is
used for this. Temperature sensor detects fire outbreaks by
sensing large temperature variations.

eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308

sensing large temperature variations. Audio announcement

system is designed to announce the approaching station names
found out via GPS location. This is also used to update critical
emergency information with the passengers such as fire
outbreak. Emergency push button to stop the train in critical
situation The mp3 audio files are stored in an external 2-GB
MicroSD memory card and an MP3 Decoder chip is used to
play it in speaker. The microcontroller is able to access the
files in memory card via a FAT-32 file system library.

6. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

It has a front SONAR ultrasonic range finder to check any

truck/car/humans/animals crossing a railway line and the train
control system oversees this and can adapt to slow down the
speed accordingly for this purpose. The onboard disaster
prevention network connects all the compartments of the train
with the main control node over CAN bus (Controller Area
Network). Each CAN node has got a variety of sensors and
devices to ensure the safety and comfort of the passengers.
The LPC11C14 are ARM cortex-M0 based microcontrollers
for embedded applications feature a high level of integration
and low power consumption. The train unit have an onboard
GPS and GSM module. The train control system send its
present GPS location information at times to the central
railway server. By using SONAR, we know how to detect the
obstacles and lessen the severity of accidents. The onboard
disaster prevention network connects all the compartments of
the train with the main control node over CAN bus. Metal
detector sensor detects explosives by sensing the variations in
the magnetic field around it. A digital MEMS magnetometer is
used for this. Temperature sensor detects fire outbreaks by

A passenger can get the location of a train via SMS from his
mobile phone in the form of longitudinal and latitudinal of the
train location. The message displays the Train location
longitude=25.32 and latitude=45.65 on the screen. All the
trains on that particular route will update the central railway
server with their location, speed and direction information.
The train control system will send its present GPS location
information periodically (typically every 30 sec) to the central
railway server. The train control system will automatically
adjust its speed to the speed indicated by the server. In
unmanned railway crossings, truck/car/humans/animals may
cross a railway line. The train control system considers this
and slow down the speed accordingly. In that case the message
is Obstacle detected. Latitude=41.32 and longitude=21.87.
Incase of any fire outbreaks in any compartment in train, the
buzzer alert is given to other compartment and an alert
message is send to central server and the train speed is
controlled. The message will be Fire detected in coach 1.
Latitude=41.32 and longitude=21.87 Incase some explosive
element is detected in any compartment of train, the buzzer
alert is given to other compartment and an alert message is
send to central server. The message will be Explosive metal
detected in coach 2. Latitude=41.32 and longitude=21.87 .In
some emergency case, the emergency switch is pressed then
the message is send to central server and the train get
controlled by stopping it. The messages will be Emergency
detected in coach 2. Latitude=41.32 and longitude=21.87
The project uses GPS data to monitor trains and offer real time
information about the location of train to users. All the trains
are monitored by a navigation system which is totally satellite
based. At present the information of the running trains are
monitored with the help of manual monitoring which is not
perfect but with the help of this project the movement of the
trains are recorded, which will also include the correct place
and speed in real time basis. Passengers can also be available
to see real time locations, as Centre of Railway Information
System (CRIS) has integrated the GPS application with
Google maps. INSAT-3C satellite will aid in location of
moving trains. The GPS system is being capable of give an
accuracy of about 10 meters, with a lag of about 2 minutes By
using this project, the controller will only plan the running and
scheduling of trains instead of co-ordination with various
other stations to confirm the status of the trains.

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Volume: 03 Issue: 05 | May-2014, Available @ http://www.ijret.org

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IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology

eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308

REFERENCES
[1]. Chuliang Wei and Zhemin Zhuang, A.I.AlShammaa,A.Shaw, Hwa-yaw Tam and S.L Ho, Avirtual
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Intelligent Computation Technology and Automation
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978-1-61284-289- 28-29 March 2011 P580 583.
[2]. Chuliang Wei and Zhemin Zhuang(2011). A CAN
Network For Temperature Monitoring of Car Engine and
Train Bogieproceeding on International conference on
internet computing and information services. 978-1-45771561-7, 17th to 18th Sep 2011, p. 302-305.
[3]. Jufang Hu, Chunru Xiong : Study on the embedded CAN
bus control system in the vehicle proceeding on International
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[4]. Li,s.; Wu,Y.;Li,g.;Zhu,Y. , Continuous and real time data
acquisition embedded system for EAST, proceeding on 16TH
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APPENDICES

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