Throughout the years, the railways system has undergone many accidents at level crossings and accidents due to poor visibility which have caused harm to countless lives of people and has also cost the railways a large amount of money. So, to rectify this problem, we have designed a model which is totally automatic, safe and works regardless of any human error. We hope to reduce the number of train accidents with our model thereby preventing injuries and saving lives and also reducing losses to railways.

1) FOG PASS

We propose a safety measure which can enhance the understanding of the surroundings.
• The Radar sensors have an excellent detection range. This is helpful as trains require a significant braking distance before coming to a halt.
• The MMW radar will be made to rotate continuously along an 80 degree arc using a pivot rotated by a servo motor. It will record the distance of an object from the train and the angle at the point where it detects an obstacle.
• Using sine formula, the distance from the track will be calculated.
• There will be a thermal camera installed to check for heat signatures, the train will be slowed to 25kmph and whistle will be blown, in case a signature of significant magnitude is detected.

2) UNMANNED RAILWAY CROSSING ALERT SYSTEM

• There will be GPS receiver on the train which will be interfaced with an arduino.
• The latitude and longitude of the train will be continuously sent to a raspberry pi on the railway crossing and distance from the crossing will be calculated.
• When the distance becomes 1.5 km the warning signal(hooter and red light) will be switched on to show that gates will be closed in 20s. (Train will cover 400m during this time assuming constant velocity of 70 kmph)
• This gives train a sufficient distance to halt.
• The gates will be closed after 20s.
• There will be a camera interfaced with the raspberry pi that detects presence of an object between the rails.
• The camera will be placed on a pole so as to have a wide field of view
• If it detects an object the driver will be indicated to start braking.

MARKETABILITY

It will be a good value addition for the railway travel, since it would reduce the losses due to such accidents and will help in preventing injuries and saving lives..
The railway is a highly valuable means of transport and has great effect on the economy. Hence, it should be made safer and secure, which requires the addition of this technology so that the losses are less. It would be a one-time investment on the train which would ensure the security of many deals that involve trading in bulk.

MANUFACTURABILITY

This project can be made using very little equipment. It involves mainly two development boards(arduino uno and raspberry pi 3), thermal camera, picamera and a sensor. These components are easy to obtain and can be assembled with nominal effort.