RAILWAY TRACK MONITORING SYSTEM

Abstract— The main problem is about railway track crack collisions.The paper takes an attempt to develop aniterative co
detection at the earliest to avoid accidents. Therefore it is mputation method for predicting the dynamics of train collisio
essential that such problems must be communicated immediately ns/crashes
to the concerned authorities by using GSM technology for
appropriate action. This project uses a microcontroller from 8051
family. The primary objective of this project is to detect the crack
in the railway track and alert the nearby station through effective I.THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
and highly reliable communication mode. To demonstrate this
project, two rails forming the part of the track are made using a GSM (Global System for Mobile communications: originally
pair of wire which is wired with a detachable jumper in between from GROUPE Special Mobile) is the most popular standard
each wire/track. Removing the detachable jumper creates a fault for mobile phones in the world. Its promoter, the GSM
in the respective track; otherwise it is generally shorted by the Association, estimates that 80% of the global mobile market
jumper wire to simulate healthy track condition. Removing the uses the standard. GSM is used by over 3 billion people across
jumpers result in driving transistors delivering a different logic
more than 212 countries and territories. Its ubiquity makes
to the controller. The program thereafter takes over to send an
SMS through GSM modem interfaced through MAX232 level international roaming very common between mobile phone
shifter IC to the microcontroller. An LCD is also interfaced with operators enabling subscribers to use their phones in many
the MC to display the status of GSM and track condition. Thus parts of the world. GSM differs from its predecessors in that
the proposed model is designed to recognize the cracks in the both signaling and speech channels are digital, and thus is
railway tracks and provides instant information to the concerned considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system.
railway authorities. The power supply consists of a step down This project is an implementation to the idea of the wireless
transformer 230/12V, which steps down the voltage to 12V AC. communication between a mobile phone and a
This is converted to DC using a Bridge rectifier. The ripples are microcontroller. Currently the main work that has been done
removed using a capacitive filter and it is then regulated to +5V
using a voltage regulator 7805 which is required for the operation
on this proposed system is through serial port to the computer
of the microcontroller and other components. but not wireless. If they want to switch on and off the
appliance, they have to go to the remote area and one /off the
Keywords—microcontroller; track; GSM; fault; etc. appliance. But in this new design, the systems need not be
reprogrammed to control another home appliance without
changing the programming of microcontroller. The user will
Introduction - send SMS from his phone and he will be able to control the
appliance. It is clear that main problem about a railway
The main problem is about railway track crack detection at the analysis is detection of cracks in the structure. If these
earliest to avoid accidents. Therefore it is essential that such decencies are not controlled at early stages they might cause
problems must be communicated immediately to the huge economical problems affecting the rail network
concerned authorities by using GSM technology for (unexpected requisition of spare parts, handling of
appropriate action. In all transport systems, particularly in the incident and/or accidents).
case of railways, safety and reliability
arehighly considered. In recent years, with the development of
high speed railway,speed and capability of the trains
constantly improved, and traffic density gets moreand more II.BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO 8051
serious. As a result the requirements to the reliability and MICROCONTROLLER
safety of the high speed train operation enhances increasingly.
When we have to learn about a new computer we have
However safety of high speed railway extremely relies on to familiarize about the machine capability we are using, and
its surrounding environment. The number of collision we can do it by studying the internal hardware design (devices
connected railway accidents shows world-wide an increasing architecture), and also to know about the size, number and the
tendency year by year. size of the registers. A microcontroller is a single chip that
contains the processor (the CPU), non-volatile memory for the
The ever increasing operation velocities cause an increasing d program (ROM or flash), volatile memory for input and output
egree of the graveconsequences both in loss of human life and (RAM), a clock and an I/O control unit. Also called a
severe damage to the train and other railway equipment. In the "computer on a chip," billions of microcontroller units
technical literature very few number of publications can be (MCUs) are embedded each year in a myriad of products from
found that are dealing with investigations into the train toys to appliances to automobiles. For example, a single
collision processes to predict the level of forces
and deformations realizing in the course of accidental
vehicle can use 70 or more microcontrollers. The following loop is broken the buzzer will be on and the sms will be sent
picture describes a general block diagram of microcontroller. to the registered sim no. about the tracks broken message and
The AT89S52 is a low-power, high-performance CMOS 8-bit the no. will be also displayed that is track no. Here the switch
microcontroller with 8K bytes of in-system programmable represents the track. The battery will pass voltage to the
Flash memory. The device is manufactured using Atmel’s microcontroller and the ic will be on. After that the status of
high-density nonvolatile memory technology and is three switches that is track will be displayed on the lcd and the
compatible with the industry-standard 80C51 instruction set monitoring of three switches According to the conventional
and pin out. The on-chip Flash allows the program memory to model of current flow originally established by Benjamin
be reprogrammed in-system or by a conventional nonvolatile Franklin and still followed by most engineers today, current is
memory programmer. By combining a versatile 8-bit CPU assumed to flow through electrical conductors from the
with in-system programmable Flash on a monolithic chip, the positive to the negative pole. In actuality, free electrons in a
Atmel AT89S52 is a powerful microcontroller, which provides conductor nearly always flow from the negative to the positive
a highly flexible and cost-effective solution to many, pole. In the vast majority of applications, however, the actual
embedded control applications. The AT89S52 provides the direction of current flow is irrelevant. Therefore, in the
following standard features: 8K bytes of Flash, 256 bytes of discussion below the conventional model is retained.
RAM, 32 I/O lines, Watchdog timer, two data pointers, three will be done by microcontroller. Prior to availability of
16-bit timer/counters, a six-vector two-level interrupt integrated electronics, such a bridge rectifier was always
architecture, a full duplex serial port, on-chip oscillator, and constructed from discrete components. Since about 1950, a
clock circuitry. In addition, the AT89S52 is designed with single four-terminal component containing the four diodes
static logic for operation down to zero frequency and supports connected in the bridge configuration became a standard
two software selectable power saving modes. The Idle Mode commercial component and is now available with various
stops the CPU while allowing the RAM, timer/counters, serial voltage and current ratings.
port, and interrupt system to continue functioning. The Power-
down mode saves the RAM con-tents but freezes the
IV. GSM MODEM
oscillator, disabling all other chip functions until the next
interrupt.
GSM is a complex system and difficult to understand. The
Mobile Station (MS) refers to the mobile equipment..The Base
Station Subsystem controls the radio link with the Mobile
Station. The Network Subsystem performs main functions
such as switching of calls between mobile users, mobility
management operations, and proper operation and setup of a
network. These functions are controlled by the Mobile
Services Switching Center (MSC). GSM is a cellular network,
which means that mobile phones connect to it by searching for
cells in the immediate vicinity.

GSM networks operate in a number of different frequency

ranges (separated into GSM frequency ranges for 2G and
UMTS frequency bands for 3G). Most 2G GSM networks
operate in the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz bands. Some countries
in the Americas (including Canada and the United States) use
the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands because the 900 and 1800
MHz frequency bands were already allocated. Most 3G GSM
networks in Europe operate in the 2100 MHz frequency band.

Network structure of GSM is given as-

Fig. 8051 Microcontroller  The Base Station Subsystem (the base stations and their
controllers).
 The Network and Switching Subsystem (the part of the
network most similar to a fixed network). This is
III.HOW DOES THE SYSTEM WORK sometimes also just called the core network.
 The GPRS Core Network (the optional part which allows
The status of three switches that is track will be displayed on packet based Internet connections).
the lcd and the monitoring of three switches will be done by
microcontroller. If any switched is pressed open that is the
 All of the elements in the system combine to produce
many GSM services such as voice calls and SMS.
XI. REFERENCES
[1] Non invasive rail track detection system using Microwave
GSM was designed with a moderate level of security. The sensor, K.Vijayakumar, S.R.Wylie, J.D.Cullen, C.C. Wright,
system was designed to authenticate the subscriber using a A.I. AIShamma’a
pre-shared key and challenge-response. Communications
[2] Detection of Cracks and Railway Collision Avoidance
between the subscriber and the base station can be encrypted.
System, S.Ramesh 2010-2011
[3] High Speed Detection of Broken Rail, Rail Cracks and
Surface Faults
[4] High speed detection of broken rails, rail cracks and
surfacefaults,Prof. M Dhanasekar,Wirtu,LBayissa& M
Dhanasekar
[5] Transverse and longitudinal crack detection in the head of
railtracksusing Rayleigh wave-like wideband guided
ultrasonicwaves,Stuart B Palmer, Steve Dixon, Rachel S
Edwards andXiaomingJian
[6] Robust Railway Crack Detection Scheme (RRCDS) Using
LEDLDRAssembly,Selvamraju,Somalraju,
VigneshwarMurali, GouravSaha,Dr. V. Vaidehi
[7] Rail crack detection: an infrared approach to in-service
trackmonitoring,Richard J. Greene,John R. Yates, Eann A.
Fig.ii). Block Diagram of GSM Network Patterson
V. ADVANTAGES [8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_ Positioning_System
 It’s cost is very low compared to existing system. [9] Railway Faults Tolerance Techniques using Wireless
Sensor Networks. Ramesh, S. Gobinathan
 Very accurate detection.
[10] The most advanced system for broken rail detection
 It also checks surface and near surface of the [11]http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/rail
cracking position. safety/technologies.pdf
[12]http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/images/product/sr-
 Transmitting signal are immediately transferred. 92.pdf

 Accidents are reduced. [13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM

[14]http://www.wvshare.com/datasheet_html/ LPC2148-
 Transmitting signals are immediately transferred. PDF.html

 It will increase the security for the both rails and

passengers from terrorism,crime.

X. CONCLUSION

The proposed broken rail detection system automatically

detects the faulty rail track without any human intervention.
There are many advantages with the proposed system when
compared with the traditional detection techniques. The
advantages include less cost, low power consumption and less
analysis time. By this proposed system the exact location of
the faulty rail track can easily be located which will mended
immediately so that many lives can be saved.