A Comprehensive Review of Obstacle Detection and Distance Measurement Techniques in Rail Transport

Railway transportation is the most used means of travel of the people. In India around 2.4 crore people travel by train on daily basis. As train network is expanding, accidents on railroad are also increasing. Most of the accidents happen because of the drivers lack of attention. The aim of this paper is to study the various approaches use to detect the objects on the track. More research is yet to be done in this area. To detect the obstacle on the railway, track many researchers used various techniques to detect and classify the objects (obstacles). Small number of them worked on obstacle detection as well as distance estimation between the obstacle and train car. Initially work done on, to find the cracks on railway track by using hardware device like sensors. Later research expanded by using supervised learning and unsupervised learning. Earlier both the approaches have been joined. i.e. a system made using software and hardware (like sensors, camera, radar etc.). Therefore, this study going to explore the techniques used by various researchers to detect the obstacles on the railroad and estimate the distance between obstacle and loco Pilot.