Made-in-India Artificial Intelligence to prevent trains from hitting animals
WANRA enhances the video's visibility in real-time and renders it on the locomotive operator cabin's display. The system can detect adult elephants and rhinoceros up to 1000 m distance.
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FollowAmidst rising incidents of killing of wild animals, including elephants and rhinoceros, on railway tracks, Bharat Electronics Limited has developed an artificial intelligence-based device that would help train drivers identify the presence of animals on the tracks even if the trains are much further away.
The device is called WANRA -- Wild Animal Recognition using Artificial Intelligence.
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Talking to Asianet News English, a BEL official said that a camera would be placed on the train's front and rear sides, and the data would be rendered on the loco operator cabin's display. The driver will have ample time to decide.
"We proposed this system to the Indian Railways recently. The trains will be equipped with cameras on the front and back sides, giving a live feed. The driver can identify the animal and make decisions for further course of action," he said.
Key features of the WANRA
WANRA enhances the video's visibility in real-time and renders it on the locomotive operator cabin's display. The system can detect adult elephants and rhinoceros up to 1000 m distance.
It has a state-of-the-art deep learning model with PyTorch implementation for the detection and classification of animals. The system generates an audio-visual alarm upon detection and recognition of wild animals like elephants and rhinos on railway tracks. It can also record and store video data for a one-week duration.
WANRA system specifications
* IR detector resolution: VGA 640*480
* Cabin display unit size 10.1"
* IP67 waterproof sunlight-readable LCD
* Cabin display unit resolution: 1024*768
* Processing unit: Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial module
* Power supply: DC-DC converter for input supply 72V or 110v DC per locomotive type.
Recently, several incidents have been reported where animals were killed on railway tracks. According to government data, 45 elephants were killed on railway tracks between 2019 and 2021. Of these, 15 deaths occurred under the Guwahati-headquartered Northeast Frontier railway.
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