Detection system of fasteners state based on zigBee networks

The safety requirements demanded from rail traffic have risen above all in view of the rapid development of modern high-speed trains. Railway fastener is the important part of rail line. The normal state of the fastener is the guarantee of the rail transportation security. The missing or broken fastener may be the tremendous threaten to the security, or even cause the serious traffic accidents. This paper presents a new fully automatic and configurable wireless sensor network system able to detect the absence of the fastening bolts that fix the rails to the sleepers. The experement indicated that the system by using sensor networks and LabVIEW can guarantee a high accurate detection for the missing or broken fastening elements in combination with the strain measurement of the rubber pad under rail.