Kavach System : Railway
The railways recently confirmed that there was no ‘Kavach’ system installed on the trains involved in the accident in Odisha’s Balasore district.
- It is an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system.
- Kavach was developed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) under Indian Railway (IR) in collaboration with Medha Servo Drives Pvt Ltd, HBL Power Systems Ltd and Kernex Microsystems.
- It is a set of electronic devices and Radio Frequency Identification devices installed in locomotives, in the signalling system as well the tracks, that talk to each other using ultra-high radio frequencies to control the brakes of trains and also alert drivers, all based on the logic programmed into them.
- Since 2016, the railways have been carrying out field tests for Kavach on passenger trains.
- It has been designed to assist locomotive pilots in avoiding Signal Passing At Danger (SPAD) and overspeeding.
- The system can alert the loco pilot, take control of the brakes and bring the train to a halt automatically when it notices another train on the same line within a prescribed distance.
- The device also continuously relays the signals ahead to the locomotive, making it useful for loco pilots in low visibility.
- It also controls the speed of the train by an automatic application of brakes in case the loco pilot fails to do so.
- It helps the loco pilot in running the train during inclement weather conditions such as dense fog.
