Automatic Railway Gate Control System Alert via SMS

An automatic railway gate control system is implemented to prevent accidents of the traction system at the railway crossing levels. Nowadays many accidents take place at the railway gate crossing due to uneven crossings, even when the gate is about to close. In general, a railway gate is normally operated by a gatekeeper as he receives the information about the arrival of the train.

Railway safety is the most crucial aspect of railways all over the world. This is the cheapest mode of transportation all over the world, and therefore, accidents are bound to happen due to carelessness manual operations. Therefore, an automatic railway-crossing-gate controller is used to prevent accidents at unmanned level crossings to provide much-needed safety. Such efficient controllers are mostly used in remote areas that often lack the services of a station master or lineman at the crossing levels.

The automatic gate control system can be implemented using different technologies such as GSM, Bluetooth, and Android. This article describes two automatic railway gate control project topics involving Android and GSM technologies.

1. Railway Level-Crossing Gate Operation Remotely by an Android Device

This project is designed to control the railway level-crossing gate through an Android application by the station master. This system uses an Android application device for opening and closing the level-crossing gate, remotely.

Remote operation can also be achieved by any smartphone or tablet with an Android-OS with a Graphical User Interface, based on Touch Screen Operation. This system uses a microcontroller as the heart of the project and is programmed in such a way that any control signal from the Android phone controls the motor for operating the gate.

A Bluetooth device is interfaced with this system to achieve remote operation. The station master or driver of a train can send a command from the Android application, and therefore, the Bluetooth on the mobile phone sends the signals to the Bluetooth device attached to a control circuit. At the receiver side, this Bluetooth device receives these signals and sends them to the microcontroller.

Therefore, based on the microcontroller’s program, it sends signals to the motor driver to operate the motor. For the operation of the motor in both the clockwise and anti-clockwise directions, a motor driver is used. This system displays the message in response to the commands given by the Android applications, such as opening and closing of the gate, in the LCD.

Here, this microcontroller based project is developed by using an Android application, and it can be further improved with a provision of sending an acknowledgment about the status of the gate to the sender and including a buzzer for alerting the persons at the gate. In this way, either the driver of the train or the station master can send the open or close commands to the gate remotely, through an Android portable phone.

2. Railway Level-Crossing Gate Control through GSM

Similar to the above project, this is also a railway level-crossing gate control system, but it is implemented by using GSM technology. In this system, the railway level crossing gate is controlled by an SMS sent by the station master or the driver to the control area.

The system has a GSM modem interfaced with a control system. When a driver or station master sends an SMS ‘open’ to the GSM modem it receives that SMS and sends it to the microcontroller. The microcontroller acknowledges these signals and sends the command signals to the motor driver IC, which controls the direction of the motor for opening and closing the gate. Therefore, this IC sends a clockwise signal to the motor to open the gate and the status gets displayed on the LCD.

In the same way, to close the gate, another SMS needs to be sent to the microcontroller. Therefore, the motor driver drives the motor in the anticlockwise direction after receiving the corresponding signals from the microcontroller.

These are the two projects based on the automatic railway gate control system for the operation of the gate. Many technologies are available to achieve this operation including Zigbee, IR, etc. Apart from this, for any help regarding any projects, you can contact us by commenting in the comment section.

Photo Credits

• Automatic Railway Gate Controlby wikimedia