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ailways are the main arteries connecting citizens to businesses and cities to towns. Trespassing, theft and vandalism are one of the most perennial problems faced by Railways. Metal theft presents a significant problem in India as organised thieves target signalling cables and other high-value metals to sell for scrap. Such incidents pose a risk to life as well as consequential repair bills, operational delays, reputational damage and monetary loss. Conventional monitoring systems like CCTV, physical barriers, signage and patrolling staff are impractical, vulnerable, and costly to deploy over an entire network

From identifying third-party intrusion and hostile activity on railway property to detecting service-affecting rockfall events, Technica Fiber Tech enables railway owners and operators across the globe to improve the performance of their assets.

The railway environment is filled with many localised sensors, designed to monitor specific faults. These sensors are often very costly and complex to deploy over the entire network. Our fiber-optic sensing technology helps asset owners and operators balance their reliance on existing sensing solutions with the need for economical route-wide coverage by converting existing fiber optic cable into an array of intelligent sensors which enables them to monitor the entire route and gain accurate and current insight on the status of all their critical infrastructure.

How does Fiber Rakshak Work?

Fiber Rakshak uses optical fiber that works as an array of thousands of extremely sensitive acoustic and vibration sensors. It uses a laser to send thousands of short pulses of light along the fiber every second. A small proportion of the light travelling in a fiber is reflected back by the process known as Rayleigh Backscatter.

Vibrations from the surrounding environment will disturb the light in the fiber and will therefore be observed by the Fiber Rakshak. It processes the data in real-time and using AI and ML it can recognise the unique acoustic pattern of each type of event.

Solutions and Applications

Our Fiber Rakshak offers potential for many railway applications. There are many advantages of this system. It can continuously monitor long stretches of tracks in real-time and simultaneously track multiple events. A single measuring system can serve multiple applications in parallel. For some applications, it can use the existing infrastructure of optical fiber and for other applications, new infrastructure can be installed easily. The Fiber Rakshak System has a very low maintenance cost. If one combines Fiber Rakshak with the strength of other standard sensors, one can get a reliable and holistic system for train surveillance.

Infrastructure Security: Fiber Rakshak can detect people on track, and prevent pilferage of copper cables. Prevention of trespassing, vandalism, and theft is one of the most critical priorities for railways and operators. Technica Fiber Tech’s Fiber Rakshak Solution detects human activity around tracks and critical sites like telecom huts and identifies hostile activity such as cable theft. The Fiber Rakshak solution complements and increases the effectiveness of existing security measures such as CCTV, physical barriers, signage, and security patrols.

Train Tracking: While conventional signalling systems will remain the primary method for the safe movement of trains, Fiber Rakshak can support operational improvements such as improved schedule management and platform announcements by providing accurate and timely information on train direction, and arrival times. It can also provide continuous localization through tunnels, over mountains, and in forests where GPS localization is unavailable.

Obstacle Detection: Falling rocks and landslide events pose a substantial safety threat and cause significant problems for railways. The Fire Rakshak Solution can accurately and reliably detect obstacles like rocks, and animals on sections with limited visibility.

Asset Condition: Detection of wheel defects such as wheel flats, and damage to tracks is another wide field of Fiber Rakshak Applications, especially with a focus on Predictive Maintenance. Our AI algorithms are capable to detect wheel flats and damages on the track itself like cracks.