Nearly 2 lakh men patrol railway lines that traverse the length and breadth of the country to manually check for cracks and then repair them. Not only is this process cumbersome, it is deadly. Studies show that an average of 400 gang men die every year in accidents, most hit by trains, while on duty.
A small robot can now save these lives and help keep thousands of passengers safe by detecting cracks on rails to avert accidents. ‘A rtemis’ the robot — developed by a team of students from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras — when fitted along a railway track, can detect cracks as small as 2cm with sensors and send out realtime data.
reuters/representational image