Design and Fabrication of PCB-Based Proximity Sensors for Application in Automatic Railway Crossing System

This paper aims to provide an overview on new application of proximity sensors in automatic railway crossing system to showcase a simple yet fundamental application of proximity sensors fabricated in-house on a printed circuit board (PCB). The system aims to prevent accidents, reduce traffic congestion, and enhance overall safety features without the direct manual intervention of gate keepers. This can be achieved by designing and deploying a connection module between proximity sensors, Arduino, traffic control lights and servo motors. There are only four proximity sensors in this module and an alert system accompanied with traffic light control system. The proximity sensors will sense the presence of train which ends up in increasing the voltage signal at output pin through which we can simultaneously control traffic light, alert system at gate crossing to provide initial information about upcoming train that will create early awareness and warning for drivers and the servo motors to close the gates of both sides. Main aim of using proximity sensor is that it provides a high speed switching rate with low power consumption at a very low cost and it needs low maintenance. This research will emphasize on the PCB fabrication of a cost-effective and efficient proximity sensor to detect the presence of approaching trains accurately. The design has potential to dominate the upcoming works regarding this particular issue.