AI-powered monitoring system to be ready soon
Fibre-optic cables were linked to e-surveillance towers and the control room
One of the towers and AI cameras
COIMBATORE: The artificial intelligence (AI) powered elephant monitoring system, coming up on the ‘A’ and ‘B’ railway lines passing through Solakkarai reserve forest of Madukkarai range in Coimbatore is likely to become functional in a month.
“Works are under progress to install cameras for the early warning system to prevent elephants being hit by trains. Almost 90 per cent of the works have got over with only some simple civil work remaining towards developing the control room. A trial run of the entire system has proved to be satisfactory,” said N Jayaraj, District Forest Officer (DFO) of Coimbatore Forest Division. A demonstration of the early warning system was recently inspected by Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment Climate Change and Forest, Tamil Nadu. The 12 towers are located on a vulnerable stretch of 7.05 kms, of which 2.9 km is in ‘A’ line and 4.15 km is in ‘B’ line.
Erected near the underpass
This technology driven warning system has coverage of 12 kms to detect elephant movement and send signals to the forest department officials. Fibre-optic cables were linked to e-surveillance towers and the control room.
“These advanced cameras can detect the movement of elephants in a long range of 150 metres on both sides of tracks and send alerts. Upon receiving alerts, the teams from the forest department can reach the spot immediately and take up driving operations. Once it becomes functional, there will not be any need to wait till the elephant comes near the tracks. Both thermal and normal cameras are being fixed to detect elephant movement along the tracks,” added the DFO.