LED-LDR Based Railway Crack Detection

Introduction:Transport is a key necessity for specialization that allows production

and consumption of products to occur at different locations. Transport has
throughout history been a spur to expansion as better transport leads to
more trade. Economic prosperity has always been dependent on increasing
the capacity and rationality of transport. But the infrastructure and
operation of transport has a great impact on the land and is the largest
drainer of energy, making transport sustainability and safety a major issue.
In India, we find that rail transport occupies a prominent position in
providing the necessary transport infrastructure to sustain and quench the
ever-burgeoning needs of a rapidly growing economy. Today, India
possesses the fourth largest railway network in the world. However, in
terms of the reliability and safety parameters, we have not yet reached truly
global standards. The principal problem has been the lack of cheap and
efficient technology to detect problems in the rail tracks and of course, the
lack of proper maintenance of rails which have resulted in the formation of
cracks in the rails and other similar problems caused by anti-social
elements which jeopardize the security of operation of rail transport. In the
past, this problem has lead to a number of derailments resulting in a heavy
loss of life and property. Cracks in rails have been identified to be the main
cause of derailments in the past, yet there have been no cheap automated
solutions available for testing purposes. Hence, owing to the crucial
repercussions of this problem, we have worked on implementing an
efficient and cost effective solution suitable for large scale application. We
hope that our idea can be implemented in the long run to facilitate better
safety standards and provide effective testing infrastructure for achieving
better results in the future
Justification of the proposed solution:
As mentioned in the literature survey, we find that the commonly
employed rail crack detection schemes in foreign countries are usually
ultrasonic or eddy current based techniques which boast of reasonably good
accuracy in most cases. However, the one characteristic which the above
mentioned methods have in common is that they are both expensive, which
makes them ineligible for implementation in the current Indian scenario.
Also, ultrasonics can only inspect the core of materials; that is, the method
cannot check for surface and near-surface cracking where many of the
faults are located. In addition, ultrasonic inspection of rails is usually

restricted to low speeds of around 20-30mph, which limits the viability

of testing many tracks regularly. Many of the most serious defects that can
develop in the rail head can be very difficult to detect using the currently
available inspection equipment. Generally, one of the reasons for slow
inspection speeds using conventional NDT is the need for couplant between
the transducer and the track using either liquid or dry couplant materials.
The Laser solution that we considered initially, offered some advantages in
terms of cost but altogether it was inefficient due to the high power needed
to power the laser and also the limitations inherent to laser. The main
problem was that as lasers generally have long wavelengths, they tend to
cut through reflecting surfaces instead of getting reflected back which poses
a serious problem in a rail crack detection system. Furthermore human
eyes are sensitive to laser light and therefore in case of a problem with the
operation, the exposure to harmful laser light poses a safety hazard. Thus
after having weighed up all our options, we have chosen the cheaper means
of a LED-LDR based detection which provides us with ruggedness and
reasonably accurate crack detection.

Block diagram:

LCD

POWER
SUPPLY
MICROCONTROLLER
LED- LDR
MODULE

LEFT
MOTOR

AT89C52
MOTOR
DRIVER
RIGHT
MOTOR

COMPONENT USED:1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

MICROCONTROLLER
LED
LDR
MOTOR DRIVER
MOTOR
LCD
LDR (Light Dependent Resistor):
The LDR is a light dependent resistor ie. the resistance of the LDR is
inversely proportional to the intensity of light incident on it. It is provided on
board to interface the board with the real world luminous intensity as the
parameter. It is connected in the lower half of a potential divider
configuration with a 10K ohm resistor, so that the resistor-ldr junction
voltage is inversely proportional to the amount of light incident on it. This
potential divider is connected to over controller pin.

CIRCUIT DIAGRAM:

LCD1

D0
D1
D2
D3
D4
D5
D6
D7

RS
RW
E

VSS
VDD
VEE

LM016L

19
18

R1

29
30
31

10k

1.0

LDR1
LDR

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

XTAL1
XTAL2

RST

PSEN
ALE
EA

P1.0/T2
P1.1/T2EX
P1.2
P1.3
P1.4
P1.5
P1.6
P1.7
AT89C52

P0.0/AD0
P0.1/AD1
P0.2/AD2
P0.3/AD3
P0.4/AD4
P0.5/AD5
P0.6/AD6
P0.7/AD7
P2.0/A8
P2.1/A9
P2.2/A10
P2.3/A11
P2.4/A12
P2.5/A13
P2.6/A14
P2.7/A15
P3.0/RXD
P3.1/TXD
P3.2/INT0
P3.3/INT1
P3.4/T0
P3.5/T1
P3.6/WR
P3.7/RD

7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

4
5
6

1
2
3

RP1
U1

39
38
37
36
35
34
33
32

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28

RESPACK-8
16
2
7
1

10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

9
10
15

GSM MODULE

RXD

VT52, VT100, ANSI

TXD
RTS
CTS

Xmodem, Ymodem, Zmodem

IN1
IN2
EN1
EN2
IN3
IN4

B1
12V

VSS

GND

8
VS OUT1
OUT2

OUT3
GND OUT4

U2
3
6

11
14
L293D