Two final year VIT students pursuing electronics and communication engineering exhibited an intelligent and cost effective traffic management system they had designed, at the university campus on Wednesday.
Achintaya and Raghav Gupta, their professor and guide J Kathirvelan, claimed the system was the first of its kind in the country, which even premier academic institutions such as the IITs and NITs have not designed so far.
The system is equipped with magnetic sensors capable of detecting metal objects and human beings, based on size and mass.
Once detected, a magnetic field would trigger the traffic lights accordingly. “We have integrated a highly advanced programmable logic controller and field programmable devices, which are very user-friendly, for mapping the type and movement of the vehicles,” noted Achintaya.
VIT vice president Sekar Viswanathan said the campus was bifurcated by a 60-metre tunnel formed by a railway underpass through which vehicles passed everyday. The system would efficiently regulate the traffic on the campus. The same can also be used for roads , hilly regions, controlling conveyor components and automating car manufacturing units, he observed, a dding, “The system runs on a software developed by us.”
The students got a sponsorhip of `5 lakh from the college and imported the magnetic sensors. The system is stand-alone, fully-programmable and does not require additional support from computers. The students were planning to patent their design, he added.