An Automatic Railway Level Crossing System with Crack Detection

Abstract

Railway system is a kind of transportation where passengers and goods are transported on wheeled vehicles running on rails located on tracks. This form of transportation is usually inexpensive, secure, and often the most convenient. In areas with frequent use of railway transport system, there is need to limit the accidents at the level crossing, mitigate the falling of trains on the rail due to cracks and create an excellent feedback system. The manual management of the system is inconvenient, time wasting and prone to sudden accidents. Hence in this work, an automatic railway system which includes automatic level crossing and crack detection system with an excellent feedback process is developed using ultrasonic sensors and microcontrollers for control. The system is unique because it uses ultrasonic sensors for maximum performance. The developed system detects cracks on the rail, automatically controls the level crossing to avoid collision and send all possible feedbacks to a remote station using the SIM module. The reliability assessment of the system gave 93.3%. The system is reliable, efficient, and convenient and it is recommended for areas where rail transport systems are demanding.