Performance evaluation of electro-mechanical railway interlocking system for digital twin application

Abstract

The industries engaged healthcare, manufacturing, and construction automated with exquisite creativity and innovation at the doorstep of Industry 4.0. In this process, digital twins are diligently used to supplement industrial processes, reduce costs, monitor assets, streamline maintenance, reduce downtime, and enable the creation of connected goods. The research is aimed at finding the digital representation of electro-mechanical railway interlocking elements are simulated and its functionality is verified accordingly. With respect to carry out this research, the Indian Railways Mangalagiri Railway Station blueprints were collected to represent the physical Model which consists of signals, points, a crank handle, an LC gate, and many more elements. In this paper, three interlocking elements such as points, crank handle, and LC gate, are analysed, modelled, and simulated by using Model Sim ME of Libero SoC software. Representation of these digital elements were developed using a smart design canvas. Therefore, the proposed methodology will enhance the safety measures and security levels of the train movements and reduces the time required to replace the faulty relay. Similarly, in future, the proposed model could be dumped into the FPGA kit to verify the real-time data for finding the faulty relay in the relay-based interlocking system.