International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013

Direct Signalling for the CREW inside Loco Motive

Kanimela Pradeep Kumar#1, Vemu Samson Dev Kumar#2, Ravi Kumar Rayala*3
#1Final Year B.Tech, Dept. of ECE, KL University, Vaddeswaram, AP, India,
#2Project Manager, Software training & development centre, SCR-WWO, Vijayawada, AP, India.
*Associate Professor, Dept. of ECE, KL University,
Vaddeswaram, AP, India.

Abstract In winter season most of the long
journey express trains passing from north India
are delayed for around 6-7 hours per day due to
invisibility of the signals caused by the fog which
necessitates the reduction in train speed. In these
foggy conditions we can directly provide
signalling cautions to the CREW inside the
Locomotive in-order to reduce train delays in
hours per day. By installing a transmitter on the
signal pole to transmit the ASK modulated
encoded train signalling information like red,
green and yellow through a directional antenna.
These signals will be received by the receiving
antenna installed in the train, whenever the
locomotive comes into the signal vicinity of
transmitter installed on the signal pole. The
receiver demodulates the received modulated
signal and sends the same to the decoder which
decodes the signals which are displayed through
the display arranged inside the locomotive with
the help of relays or through LCD display if
required. With this the loco-pilots can maintain
good speed at nights and further we can reduce
the delay that trains encountered in the winter
season and can assure the passengers of Indian
railways a convenient journey in winter.
Keywords Crew, Locomotive, relays.
I. INTRODUCTION
Indian Railways is the biggest organization
in India and it is widest used transport portal both
for the passenger and goods. But, somehow it fails
to provide better services to the passengers.
In the winter season most of the trains from
north India were delayed due to the severe foggy
conditions in the winter. In general the visibility
range of a Loco Pilot is 500-700 meters, but due to
the bad weather in the winter i.e. fog, the visibility
range is reduced to just 200-300 meters for the
CREW from night to 8-9O clock in the morning.
Hence the crew faces terrible situation in following
the caution order and runs the Loco Motive at a
speed of 30-60 kmph instead of 90-110 kmph at the
above mentioned period. So the trains are running
late nearly by 3-6 hours per day in winter season.
The passengers are crowded at railway
stations and consuming railway facilities such as
electricity, waiting halls etc. The passengers also
facing panic situation with the inconvenience
occurred due to the train delays.
Recently, CRIS i.e. Centre for Railway
Information Systems had launched NTES i.e.
National Train Enquiry System which fills
communication gap between the Indian Railways
and the Passengers. Here the passenger can access
the current location of their train through
1. www.trainenquiry.com
2. www.spoturtrain.com
And the passenger can track the updated location of
their train for every 10 minutes through
railradar.com. The above system helps in
controlling the consumption of railway resources,
boosting this system below mentioned project will
able to control the delay encountered in the night
times completely, without replacing entire existing
signalling system of railways simply by installing
one module inside the locomotive.
II. INTERFACING
In the signal poles the voltage is 12V dc,
which is stepped down by the transformer from
440V ac to 12V ac and then converted to 12 dc by
rectifiers such as full-wave rectifiers and bridge
rectifiers. This 12V D.C., is given to the signal pole
lights i.e. red, green and yellow through relays by

ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org Page 991

International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013

the station masters. Relays perform switching
operation through a magnetic link.
In the transmitter interfacing section, we
further regulate the 12V dc to 5V dc using 7805IC
regulator which in-turn used as supply voltage
entire transmitter section
regulator .This input is processed by the micro-
controller with the code dumped on it ,and converts
it into series of digital bits .These coded data is
needed since the signals are only meant for the
loco-pilots, so that no trespasser can access the
transmitted signal if coded. For the security purpose
the encoder that properly programmed i.e; adds
some extra bits so that most of the transmission
difficulties are solved. One of them is Inter Symbol
Interference occurred when one bit data is
overlapped on the other data i.e. signal distortion
occurs. A necessary and sufficient condition for
distortion less transmission or zero ISI, is given by
a function

VOLTAGE REGULATION

This regulated three 5V dc supply is then

given to the encoder. Here out of three inputs only
B. FM Modulator
one at a is 5V dc while rest are at the 0V dc
The series of the coded digital data is given
to the FM modulator which is multiplied with high
frequency (433MHZ) carrier and transmitted
through the antenna. Modulation is the process of
re-encoding the digital coded bits into a continuous
signal which is needed to assure the proper transfer
of the data over long distances; here in this case we
need to transfer the caution signals to around 700-
900 meters. The modulation technique used here is
ASK i.e. Amplitude Shift Keying. In ASK the high
frequency carrier amplitude is varied in accordance
to the amplitude of the message signal. Here the
transmitting module used is TRX-433MHZ
modulator
IV. RECEIVER DESIGN

Block Diagram:
A. FM Demodulator
The received signal through antenna in RX-
433MHZ demodulator module, The RF
III. TRANSMITTER DESIGN receiver(RX-434) module can receive the signal
transmitted by the transmitter from a distance up-to
1 to 1.5km. The range can be increased up to 30
A. Encoding Unit meters using a good antenna and, the received
This is the integrated module in the signal is demodulated with help of multiplier and
transmitter module. The 5V dc is taken as synchronized decision device in the Fm
continuous analog input from the voltage

ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org Page 992

International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013

demodulator and the output is in the digital form as antenna simply redirects the energy it receives from
encoder produce. This digital data is given to the the transmitter. The redirection of this energy has
decoder further. The demodulator also uses the effect of providing more energy in one direction,
Amplitude Shift Keying modulation technology. and less energy in all other directions. For this
This demodulator module is integrated in the project, we used directional antennas such as
receiver which is fixed on the Locomotive. This parabolic antenna, horn antenna, patch antenna and
receiver gets the supply voltage from the 5V dc slotted antennas to interface at the transmitter and
battery or the available ac supply in the locomotive the receiver ends
is step-down and rectified to the required level i.e.
5V dc and served to FM Demodulator module, VI. SIGNAL JAMMER
Display and the Decoding Unit as Power Supply.
Jamming is a process in which the receiver
B. Decoding Unit is blocked from receiving a signal by using a
The serial data from the FM demodulator os jamming circuit which transmits a random signal of
given to the decoder. The purpose of decoding is higher power in the same frequency.
essential in these cases 1. If there two are signal
poles, one meant for up-direction and another A.Working Principle
meant for down-direction signalling, if two trains Jammers work by outputting a RF signal at
crossing each other at an instant of time, then the same frequency expected by the device thats
interference occurs in received signals 2. When a being jammed, but at a higher power compared to
train comes nearer to a signal pole meanwhile the normal signal. The jamming signal itself is
another train crossed from another direction then usually random noise or a pure signal. The device
there is a probability of both trains capturing the being jammed will then receive the higher power
same signal. In order to solve both the above signal which is from the jammer, and then the
problems, in the decoder we set an address which is devices can no longer function correctly. A jammer
not same for all trains for up direction and similarly circuit works on receiver section of the
for down-direction also. Then the signals are meant communication not on the transmitter section.
for trains in a particular direction only. We can
achieve the same result using the Signal Jammer for
some extent, which is discussed later. The decoded
signals are given to the display unit. The micro-
controller used for the decoding unit is AT89C51.

C. Display Unit
The output of the decoding unit is the 5V dc,
through three wires from the micro-controller
always one wire contains the voltages these used in
display unit to lit corresponding signal transmitted
through relays. The power supply to the bulbs is
taken from the process of step-down and
rectification of the ac power available in the
locomotive itself. We can also interface LCD to
display the signals transmitted.
V. ANTENNAS B. Block Diagram of Jammer

An antenna is a passive device which does

not offer any added power to the signal. Instead, an

ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org Page 993

International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013
We need need to restrict the signal in the
confined region at some instances so we place a
jammer in required zone which jams transmitted
frequencies. Here we use a 433mhz frequency as it
is a license free band that can be used for
experimentation purpose.
In the case of real time application of we can
use the frequency band that is allocated by the
Government of India to the Indian Railways.. The
range of the jammer should be fixed in such a way
that the jamming signal makes the locomotivr
receiver to capture signals only when it comes to
the range of specified i.e; 500-700 meters. We can
use a random pulse generator or any random noise
for the purpose of jamming.
C.Jammer Circuit
VII. CONCLUSION
In this project RF based communication is
established to exchange information between
signalling department and the Locopilot by utilizing
micro-controller coading.The future scope of the
project is to develop less no of transmitters
installing at the signal poles instead of installing at
each pole,and we can use same module to convey
digital caution order also.
VIII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org
This Project work has been done in the
period of Practice school at Software training and
Developement Centre South Central Railway
Women Welfare Organization ,as a part of college
curriculum. The authors acknowledge the support
of Practice school Manager Mr. B Suresh, ,
Operational Guide Mr. A Suresh.
REFERENCES
[1] The IEEE website. [Online]. Available: http://www.ieee.org/
[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relay
[3]http://www.electronicslab.com
[4] http://www.engineers- garrage.com
[5] www.cris.org.in/
[6] en.wikipedia.org/
[7] www.scr.indianrailways.gov.in/
[8] The 8051 Microcontroller and Embedded Systems Using Assembly
and C 2nd-edition by Muhammad Ali Mazid
BIOGRAPHY
Kanimela Pradeep Kumar was
born in 1992 in Nellore
district.Currently he is pursuing
his b. tech final year in K.L.
UNIVERSITY in Electronics and
Communication stream. His areas
of interest are embedded systems
and digital Communication.
Email:sunnykpradeep@gmai.com
Rayala Ravi Kumar pursued his masters M.E. in
Communication systems from P.S.G. College of
technology. For the past 15 years he is associated
with Telecom industry and Academia at various
capacities He has 9 year experience in association
with Academic Institutions worked as lecturer,
Associate Professor, Professor and Head of the
Department and Prof. Currently he is working as
Page 994
International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013

associate professor in Dept. of

E.C.E. at K. L. UNIVERSITY.
His ares of interests are embedded
systems and satistical signal
processing.
Email: rrayala@kluniversity.in

V. SAMSON DEV KUMAR

working as Project Manager at
Software training and development Center,South
Central Railway-WWO with has 10 years
experience in this field, Studied M.Sc Computer
Science ,PG Dip loma in Computer
Applications .He has 12 years teaching
experience .Currently ,he is pursuing P.hd.
Email:vemusamson@gmail.com

ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org Page 995