Physical distancing is the new norm of the day and the Signal and Telecommunications wing of Thiruvananthapuram Railway Division has come up with an innovative portable device that prompts people to maintain proper physical distance from one another.
Named ‘Social Distancing Ensuring Device’, it has been designed with special consideration to the safety of on-duty Railways personnel. If two or more people wearing the device happen to come within a distance of two or three metres, it will warn them with an alarm sound from the Pezo buzzer and a red LED will glow. The buzzer will continue to beep till they maintain a distance of three meters.
Designed and developed by R. Nidheej, Junior Engineer, Signal, under the guidance of Senior Divisional Signal and Telecommunication Engineer Dinesh R., the device, weighing 30 gms, can be carried in a pocket, attached to the identity card, and can even be worn with a wrist watch.
The easy-to-use device costs less than ₹800 and can be recharged with the help of a charger. Once charged, it will be active for more than 12 hours. As Radio Frequency signals are used for detection, no line of sight is required between the devices. The device has a Radio Frequency Trans-receiver and works on Lithium Polymer Rechargeable battery.
“Initially, the device was developed to be used in the helmet and it weighed 500 gms. This was not conducive to the users. The present version was put together in a week and the range has been increased to three metres,” says Mr. Nidheej, who also came up recently with the robot ‘RailMitra’ to distribute essential things like medicines, food and water to COVID-19 patients and also to collect used plates, bottles, masks from them.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Railways shared a video on their official Twitter handle that details how the device works.
