Course Number: ME 362

Course Title: INSTRUMENTATION AND

MEASUREMENT SESSIONAL


TERM PROJECT
PROJECT TITLE:
Microcontroller Based Automatic Railway Gate Control
System







Department of Mechanical Engineering
SUBMITTED BY
Mansura Islam Linda (0810108)
Seikh Hayatul Haque (010116)
Kawsar Alam (0810124)


Group : B
28

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
December-2011

















A project paper
For
Microcontroller Based Automatic
Railway Gate Control System

BY
Mansura Islam Linda(0810108)
Seikh Hayatul Haque (0810116)
Kawsar Alam (0810124)



Supervised by
Mr. Reaz Mohiuddin, Asst.Professor
Mr. Kazi Arafat Rahman , Lecturer
Mr. Adnan Morshed, Lecturer
Mr. Aminul Islam Khan, Lecturer

ME 362 (Instrumentation and Measurement Sessional)




All praise be upon almighty Allah . We express our humble gratitude to
our course teacher Mr. Reaz Mohiuddin, Mr. Kazi Arafat Rahman ,
Mr. Adnan Morshed and Mr. Aminul Islam Khan .We are doing
something like this for the very first time in our life . So ,Without their
proper help, advice, smart idea and strong guidance, it was tough for us
to complete the project. Special thanks for Mr. Masudur Rahman,
assistant Instrumentation Engineer for his integrity and helpfulness.

We are very much grateful for the outstanding technical support from
the Carpentry shop. Everybody out there has been a big help .
I want to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to my
fellow batch mate Fahimul Islam and Farrukh Ahmed Parag for their
support without which this project would have been a mere dream .
Finally, we express our gratitude to Dr. Taher Ali sir, who made a
notable contribution to set up Instrumentation and Measurement
sessional Lab. From this lab we have enjoyed the uncomparable feeling
of creation . It is really wonderful when things just work !
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT











The purpose of this project is to design a simple system to control an
unmanned railway gate over a level crossing. When there is an incoming
train on the verge of arriving at the level crossing, an alarm will go on as
well as turning the RED SIGNAL Lights on too. The gate/barrier will be
automatically closed. The system will be restore to its initial condition
(Alarm OFF, RED SIGNAL Lights OFF, GREEN SIGNAL light on,
Gate Open) after the train leaves the crossing.
In our project, we developed a working algorithm to achieve this
target and a simplified model is assembled to illustrate the operation and
control.



INTRODUCTION:



Microcontroller Unit ATMEGA32
LEDs AND Light Dependent Resistors(LDR)
DC Stepper Gear Motor (5 wire uni-polar type)
L293D (motor driver)
Resistances for proper biasing, control and safety measure
7805
Capacitors(1F 250v, 0.1F, 1000F)
Breadboard
Cables
Toy Train
Ply wood




EQUIPMENTS USED:
Microcontroller ATMEGA32:
Microcontroller
:


The AVR core combines a rich instruction set with 32 general purpose
working registers.
All the 32 registers are directly connected to the Arithmetic Logic Unit
(ALU), allowing
two independent registers to be accessed in one single instruction
executed in one clock
cycle. The resulting architecture is more code efficient while achieving
throughputs up to
ten times faster than conventional CISC microcontrollers.
The ATmega32 provides the following features: 32K bytes of In-System
Programmable
Flash Program memory with Read-While-Write capabilities, 1024 bytes
EEPROM, 2K
byte SRAM, 32 general purpose I/O lines, 32 general purpose working
registers, a
JTAG interface for Boundary-scan, On-chip Debugging support and
programming, three
flexible Timer/Counters with compare modes, Internal and External
Interrupts, a serial
programmable USART, a byte oriented Two-wire Serial Interface, an 8-
channel, 10-bit
ADC with optional differential input stage with programmable gain
(TQFP package only),
a programmable Watchdog Timer with Internal Oscillator, an SPI serial
port, and six
software selectable power saving modes. The Idle mode stops the CPU
while allowing
the USART, Two-wire interface, A/D Converter, SRAM,
Timer/Counters, SPI port, and
interrupt system to continue functioning. The Power-down mode saves
the register contents
but freezes the Oscillator, disabling all other chip functions until the next
External
Interrupt or Hardware Reset. In Power-save mode, the Asynchronous
Timer continues
to run, allowing the user to maintain a timer base while the rest of the
device is sleeping.
The ADC Noise Reduction mode stops the CPU and all I/O modules
except Asynchronous
Timer and ADC, to minimize switching noise during ADC conversions.
In Standby
mode, the crystal/resonator Oscillator is running while the rest of the
device is sleeping.
This allows very fast start-up combined with low-power consumption. In
Extended
Standby mode, both the main Oscillator and the Asynchronous Timer
continue to run.
The device is manufactured using Atmels high density nonvolatile
memory technology.
The On-chip ISP Flash allows the program memory to be reprogrammed
in-system
through an SPI serial interface, by a conventional nonvolatile memory
programmer, or
by an On-chip Boot program running on the AVR core. The boot
program can use any
interface to download the application program in the Application Flash
memory. Software
in the Boot Flash section will continue to run while the Application
Flash section is
updated, providing true Read-While-Write operation. By combining an
8-bit RISC CPU
with In-System Self-Programmable Flash on a monolithic chip, the
Atmel ATmega32 is
a powerful microcontroller that provides a highly-flexible and cost-
effective solution to
many embedded control applications.
The ATmega32 AVR is supported with a full suite of program and
system development
tools including: C compilers, macro assemblers, program
debugger/simulators, in-circuit
emulators, and evaluation kits.


Here is the pin configuration of ATMEGA32 :-















As we can see now it is easy to control the motor by changing polarity.
But changing the polarity is not as easy as it seemed to be. So we used
motor controller to control it. Below there is a schematic to control a
single motor.


Motor Controllers (L293D):

When we switch S1 and s4, motor will start rotating; while for
switching s2 and s3 motor will be controlled in reverse direction. This
diagram is also termed as H-Bridge. This bridge is used for the
L293D chip which was used for motor controlling.






For this layout of connection motor will rotate according to the table.
Here 1 and 0 denotes high<non-zero voltage> and low<zero
voltage> respectively.


For this layout of connection motor will rotate according to the table.
Here 1 and 0 denotes high<non-zero voltage> and low<zero
voltage> respectively.








PROTEUS CIRCUIT DIAGRAM:









PROTEUS CIRCUIT DIAGRAM:





















BLOCK DIAGRAM:

YES YES
NO NO
NO NO
NO
NO
START
INITIALIZE LCD, SENSORS,
MOTORS, LIGHTS.
SENSOR 2
SENSOR
CROSSED?

MOTOR CCW ROTATED, GATE CLOSED
SENSOR 1
SENSOR
CROSSED?

SENSOR 1
SENSOR
CROSSED?
MOTOR CCW ROTATED, GATE CLOSED
SENSOR 2
SENSOR
CROSSED?









In the ready state, the MCU (Microcontroller Unit) continuously checks
the status of Sensor-1 (SEN1) and Sensor-2 (SEN2). In simple words,
when MCU gets an interrupt at any of them, it closes the gate and checks
the other Sensor to determine the leaving moment of the train and then it
opens the gate to return to ready state.
In the above block diagram, we explained the events that occur
after getting an interrupt at SEN1. The events for SEN2 might be
realized in exactly same manner. After the cycle completes, the system
returns to ready state as indicated with a START label in above diagram.
Now we explain the logic described in above model.
The MCU continuously checks SEN1 as long as the value stays
zero. When (SEN=1), MCU starts closing the gate barrier of the railway
level crossing by controlling a DC Stepper Gear Motor. There is a local
variable SAFETY_FACTOR which initialized as zero at first. It is
used to measure the time to pass the train through SEN1 completely in
second. But when at first SEN1=1 motors starts running and a small
time is needed for closing the barrier completely. By simple hand
YES
YES
MOTOR CW, GATE OPEN MOTOR CW, GATE OPEN
YES
EXPLANATION
:
calculation the gate opening and closing time is adjusted to 1 second. So
SAFETY_FACTOR starts to count directly from 1 second so that the
total time needed to pass the train SEN1 is found correctly. So while the
train passes the sensor (so SEN1 stays one), the MCU keeps increasing
a local variable SAFETY_FACTOR. When SEN1 becomes zero, it
can be realized that the train has already passed SEN1. So MCU starts
monitoring the status of SEN2 as shown on the diagram.
If the value at SEN2 is one, that means train reached SEN2. Else,
it means train has not passed all the way to the leaving sensor yet. So
MCU does busy waiting as long as SEN2 is zero. When SEN2
becomes one, we know that train reached SEN2. So assuming the train
speed is somewhat constant, we start decreasing SAFETY_FACTOR
until it becomes zero. So then it is assumed that the train has left the
sensor 2 unless its speed decreased in the mean time. But if the train
speed has been decreased in this time then SAFETY_FACTOR
becomes zero but train has not passed SEN2 yet. So we make a further
check of the SEN2 state, If it is one, then it is obvious that train speed
is not constant. So we keep waiting until it becomes zero to indicate
confirmation of train leaving. At its zero event, we finally restore the
gate position (open gate) using stepper motor and get back to ready state.
There are two emergency cases. Firstly, if any vehicle get struck in
the middle of the rail line a signal is passed to the train driver. Secondly,
if the gate fails to close a signal is passed to the driver so that he could
take precautionary measures.




Stepper motor:

The stepper motor is a DC motor, which has
several coils. In our design, we used a Stepper
Gear Motor. One end of the coils is shorted
and kept at Vdc = 12V. The other ends of the
coils are energized sequentially and hence the
motor starts rotating. The sequence and
internal delay between applying the energy
dictates the speed and direction of rotation.
The pulses on the coils are given via MOSFET
Switching. So if we give zero volts at a coil
end, it is energized as other end is at 12Vdc.
This motor has gear system so that the rotor will not rotate by any
mechanical force, until the gate pulses are given in the coils. We used
half step rotation logic on the coils.
Table: Truth table to rotate the rotor of the stepper motor in
half step:
coil
4(C4)
coil
3(C3)
coil
2(C2)
coil
1(C1)
BYTE
Value
1 0 0 1 9
1 0 0 0 8
1 1 0 0 12
0 1 0 0 4
0 1 1 0 6
0 0 1 0 2
0 0 1 1 3
0 0 0 1 1


Stepper motor calculation:
C1 C2 +V C3 C4

Step size of stepper motor = 7.5 degrees/step.
Rotation of the stepper motor needed = 90 degree
Total step requiRED SIGNAL if half step is used = 90 / 7.5 * 2 = 24
If 1 second time is requiRED SIGNAL to close/open the gate delay
between 2 half steps = (1/24)*1000 = 42 ms





In our scheme, two infrared sensors were used to detect the
presence of train. But weight sensor would give better accuracy for
the detection purpose. In that case, four weight sensors will be
used in the whole scheme. Two of them will lie at very far from
the level crossing to sense the approach of a train, and the other
two will be just by the side the crossing to get a better accuracy to
get leaving edge of the train.

We assumed the train enters and leaves at almost constant speed. If
the train stops in the region of SEN1, then the delay COUNT will
increase higher than needed and so the gate will be opened at a
delayed time. Although that is not a usual case, still this is a
limitation of our design.

LIMITATIONS AND DISCUSSIONS:
The motor we used is a DC Stepper Gear type which has a static
rotor so that we can hold the Barrier in a vertical plane. If we want
to use a gate which will lie beside the railway line and slide
horizontally to block the traffic, then any kind of bidirectional
motor will be sufficient. But to use a Boom Barrier (on a vertical
arc movement), DC Stepper Gear motor must be used as we have
done.














#include <mega16.h>
#include <stdio.h>
Microcontroller codes:
#include <lcd.h>
#include <delay.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#define LCDwidth 16

// Alphanumeric LCD Module functions
#asm
.equ __lcd_port=0x12 ;PORTD
#endasm
unsigned char Buffer1[17];
unsigned char Buffer2[17];
unsigned char Buffer3[17];

// DC Stepper Gear Motor Driving Function
// Input Argument 'flag' controls direction of rotation
void MotorRun(int flag)
{
unsigned char i;
// forward run signal sequence
unsigned char cw[] = {9,8,12,4,6,2,3,1};
for(i=0;i<=7;i++)
{
if (flag)
{ // forward run
PORTC = cw[i%8];
delay_ms(42);
}
else
{ // reverse run
PORTC = cw[7-(i%8)];
delay_ms(42);
}
}
}

void main(void)
{
//local variables
int k;
int Safety_factor;
int emergency;

//status pin output
DDRA=0xFF;
PORTA=0x00;
//sensor input
DDRB=0x00;
PORTB=0x00;
//stepper motor output
DDRC=0xFF;
PORTC=0x00;
// LCD OUTPUT
DDRD=0xFF;
PORTD=0x00;
lcd_init(LCDwidth);
lcd_clear();
while (1)
{
PORTA.0 = 1; // TURN ON GREEN SIGNAL
PORTC = 0x00; // MOTOR OFF
Safety_factor = 0; // current count is zero

if(PINB.1 !=1 && PINB.2 != 1)
{
sprintf(Buffer1,"No Rail Crossing");
lcd_gotoxy(0,0);
lcd_puts(Buffer1);
}

if(PINB.1==1) // train approaches from S1?
{
//LCD signal for train engine
lcd_clear();
sprintf(Buffer1,"RailGate Closing");
lcd_gotoxy(0,0);
lcd_puts(Buffer1);
sprintf(Buffer2,"Infront");
lcd_gotoxy(4,1);
lcd_puts(Buffer2);

PORTA.0 = 0; // turn OFF GREEN SIGNAL
PORTA.1 = 1; // TURN ON YELLOW SIGNAL
PORTA.7 = 1; // TURN BUZZER ON
delay_ms(2000);
PORTA.1 = 0; // TURN OFF YELLOW SIGNAL
PORTA.2 = 1; // TURN ON RED SIGNAL

// gate is closing now.
for (k=0;k<3;k++)
{
MotorRun(1); // motor forward run
}

PORTC = 0x00; // ULN SIGNALS ARE ZERO
Safety_factor = 2; // initialize the count to 2

emergency = 1000;

while(emergency ==1000)
{
if(PINB.6 == 1)
{
PORTA.6 = 1;
lcd_clear();
sprintf(Buffer1,"EMERGENCY!!");
lcd_gotoxy(4,0);
lcd_puts(Buffer1);
sprintf(Buffer2,"SLOW DOWN");
lcd_gotoxy(4,1);
lcd_puts(Buffer2);
break;
}
delay_ms(1);
emergency--;
}
if(PINB.1==1) // train tail entering?
{
while(PINB.1==1) // yes then check
again
{
Safety_factor++; // count upward
delay_ms(500); // now wait for 1
sec...
delay_ms(500); // and then check
again
}
}

if(PINB.2==0) // train reached S2?
{
while(PINB.2==0) // no, then keep
waiting
{
; // until train reaches S2
}
}
// above loop is broken, so train reached S2

while(Safety_factor>0) // is count nonzero?
{
delay_ms(500); // then wait for 1 second
delay_ms(500); // and then decrease the
COUNT
Safety_factor--; // count and loop
again
}
// count is zero now, so train has possibly passed
S2
if(PINB.2==1) // but check again
{
while(PINB.2==1) // is train tail on S2?
{
; // keep polling
}
}
PORTA.2 = 0; // TURN OFF RED SIGNAL
PORTA.1 = 1; // TURN ON YELLOW SIGNAL

// now the train tail surely passed S2, so...
for (k=0;k<3;k++)
{
MotorRun(0); // motor reverse run
}
PORTC = 0x00; // motor off
//LCD signal for train engine
lcd_clear();
sprintf(Buffer1,"RailGate crossed");
lcd_gotoxy(0,0);
lcd_puts(Buffer1);
PORTA.6 = 0;
delay_ms(1000);
PORTA.7 = 0; // TURN BUZZER OFF
PORTA.1 = 0; // TURN OFF YELLOW SIGNAL
PORTA.0 = 1; // turn ON GREEN SIGNAL
lcd_clear();
}

// Now, as we reach this line of the code, it
// means S1 is not sensing any incoming train
// so check for train from the opposite direction

else if(PINB.2==1) // train approaches from S2?
{
//LCD signal for train engine
lcd_clear();
sprintf(Buffer1,"RailGate Closing");
lcd_gotoxy(0,0);
lcd_puts(Buffer1);
sprintf(Buffer2,"Infront");
lcd_gotoxy(4,1);
lcd_puts(Buffer2);

PORTA.0 = 0; // turn OFF GREEN SIGNAL
PORTA.1 = 1; // TURN ON YELLOW SIGNAL
PORTA.7 = 1; // TURN BUZZER ON
delay_ms(2000);
PORTA.1 = 0; // TURN OFF YELLOW SIGNAL
PORTA.2 = 1; // TURN ON RED SIGNAL

for (k=0;k<3;k++)
{
MotorRun(1); // motor forward run
}

PORTC = 0x00; // ULN signal zero
Safety_factor = 2; // initialize the count to 2

emergency = 1000;

while(emergency ==1000)
{
if(PINB.6 == 1)
{
PORTA.6 = 1;
lcd_clear();
sprintf(Buffer1,"EMERGENCY!!");
lcd_gotoxy(4,0);
lcd_puts(Buffer1);
sprintf(Buffer2,"SLOW DOWN");
lcd_gotoxy(4,1);
lcd_puts(Buffer2);
break;
}
delay_ms(1);
emergency--;
}

if(PINB.2==1) // train tail entering?
{
while(PINB.2==1) // yes then check
again
{
Safety_factor++; // count upward
delay_ms(500); // now wait for 1
sec...
delay_ms(500); // and then check
again
}
}

if(PINB.1==0) // train reached S1?
{
while(PINB.1==0) // no, then keep
waiting
{
; // until train reaches S1
}
}
// above loop is broken, so train reached S1

while(Safety_factor>0) // is count nonzero?
{
delay_ms(500); // then wait for 1 second
delay_ms(500); // and then decrease the
Safety_factor--; // count and loop
again
}
// count is zero now, so train has possibly passed
S1
if(PINB.1==1) // but check again
{
while(PINB.1==1) // is train tail on S2?
{
; // keep polling
}
}
// now the train tail surely passed S2, so...
PORTA.2 = 0; // TURN OFF RED SIGNAL
PORTA.1 = 1; // TURN ON YELLOW SIGNAL

for (k=0;k<3;k++)
{
MotorRun(0); // motor reverse run
}
PORTC = 0x00; // ULN signal zero
lcd_clear();
sprintf(Buffer1,"RAILGAT E CROSSED");
lcd_gotoxy(0,0);
lcd_puts(Buffer1);
PORTA.6 = 0;
delay_ms(1000);
PORTA.7 = 0; // TURN BUZZER OFF
PORTA.1 = 0; // TURN OFF YELLOW SIGNAL
PORTA.0 = 1; // turn ON GREEN SIGNAL
lcd_clear();
}
}
}