A complete hardware and modular solution for interlocking systems

Although development of Fault tolerance techniques has facilitated the use of microprocessors in safety critical and mission critical applications to a large extent, a major issue in its application remains ensuring correctness of software. Majority of failures of space missions and many other safety critical systems are attributable to software faults. Attempts have also been made to develop independent versions of software by independent groups to avoid software errors, however, independence of the resulting software programmes is generally in doubt. To overcome the safety issues associated with Software, we have undertaken a project for development of a fail-safe platform, based on complete hardware implementation. Today, extremely powerful configurable hardware units are available, which can support complex combinatorial and sequential logics n thanks to the advancement in VLSI technology. The hardware unit has been successfully configured for Level crossing controller. The following Sections describe development of the hardware platform and implantation of the mathematical model of the Level crossing controller over it.