IIT Madras Folks Build Robot to Detect Cracks in Rail Tracks, Prevent Train Accidents!

Artemis is a robot built by a team of students from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Artemis is fitted along a railway track and can detect cracks as small as 2 cm with sensors and send out real-time data.The 1.5 foot-long robot has six wheels which can move back-and-forth at a speed of 1 m/s on the tracks. It is equipped with ultrasonic and infrared sensors to collect data and send it to a microcontroller (microchip) inside the robot. It is not only lightweight, but can move on the tracks even when there is a train running on it.Shashwat Sahoo, a student of biotechnology at IIT-M and a member of the Artemis team, told The Times Of India, “We have developed a system that is fully automatic and sends out real-time data with accurate location of the crack for action needed. It cuts response time.” He added, “It is (a) cheap solution for Indian Railways — we used commonly available material to build the device.”