Energy efficient railway track security using vibration sensing network

Abstract

Accidents occurring in railway transportation systems cost a large number of lives. Many people die and several others get physical and mentally injured. There is certain need of advanced and robust techniques that can not only prevent these accidents but also eradicate all possibilities of their occurrence. We are proposing a sensor network which continuously monitors the railway track through the acoustic sensors and detect any discontinuity in the track. The sensor nodes are equipped with the acoustic sensors that can sense the vibration in the railway track due a coming train. They also estimate the theoretical value of vibration knowing their distance from the train. They compare sensed and estimated vibration intensities. If there is a major difference between these intensities then the track is suspected to be broken. The geographical positioning sensors are placed on the trains as well as on sensors. This complete process is real time in nature and should meet the timing deadlines. The nodes placed on the track and the forwarding poles are expected to work regularly for a long period of time without human intervention. These are generally battery operated so should be following some energy efficiency algorithm also. This paper is an attempt to optimize the energy used by the sensor nodes by using proposed intelligent sensor and lazy pole strategy. Very few approaches have been implemented concerning the track breakage detection. The sensors follow the proposed intelligent sensing technique whereas the poles follow the lazy poles strategy to make the approach energy efficient.