Design of a Vibration Sensor Based Train Arrival Detection System to Prevent Elephant-Train Accidents in Sri Lanka

Abstract

At present, Sri Lanka is home to about 5,000-6,000 wild elephants roaming over close to 70% of the country’s land. Despite this blessing, around 150 elephants die each year due to many reasons. The main reasons for the altercations between humans and elephants are the drastic increase in the human population, human encroachment upon elephant territory for agriculture and settlements and unplanned development and transportation efforts. Elephants are long lived herbivores, and their survival depends upon regular migration over large distances to search for food, water, and social and reproductive partners. According to the Sri Lanka railways the average number of elephants that get killed due to elephant-railway accidents is about 9 per year. As a solution for this problem, we have proposed a novel system to pass a signal to indicate the train arrival. The proposed system detects the vibration of the locomotives and after detecting the vibration, alarm system will generate a high frequency signal within the frequency range, where the elephants are sensitive. The proposed system is a low cost device and this can be placed anywhere at any time. Moreover, this project aims to protect elephants from being harmed which usually happen due to various human activities.