Availability and Reliability Improvement of Signaling Equipment through Remote Condition Monitoring: Point Machines
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Date
2019-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
For the past decade, sensing technologies have emerged and expanded rapidly. Due to the
sensor devices becoming cheaper, condition monitoring systems have become an option as
a management tool. These systems are designed and deployed in structure health monitoring,
vehicles, machinery and even wild life preservation systems. These cheap sensors together
with the recent advances in networking technologies such as wireless communication and
mobile ad hoc networking coupled with the technology to integrate devices has brought the
emergence of wireless sensor networks (WSNs).
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be used for monitoring the railway infrastructure such
as bridges, rail tracks, tunnels and track signalling equipment as well as vehicle health
monitoring like chassis, bogies and wheels. Condition monitoring especially in remote areas
reduces human inspection requirements through automated monitoring, in essence it majorly
reduces maintenance costs through detecting faults before they escalate which then improves
reliability, availability and safety.
In this thesis, a WSN for condition monitoring of railway point machines is researched. The
point machine is selected for monitoring after data analysis of signalling devices failure rates
at Addis Ababa light rail transit.
A dynamic website application is developed to monitor and manage the information coming
from the sensor nodes wireless transmission. The collected data is stored using a database
management service. The system uses open source tools which makes it possible to keep the
cost low to justify the savings in maintenance costs.
Description
Keywords
Condition monitoring, WSN, Railway signalling, sensors, Reliability, Availability