Optimal estimation techniques to reduce false alarms in railway obstacle detection

This work presents some methods to reduce false alarms in railway obstacle detection. The sensorial system is based on one barrier of infrared emitters and another of receivers, placed on opposing sides of the railway. Obstacle detection is achieved by the lack of reception in the detectors. On the one hand, the efficiency of the system is achieved with the geometrical distribution of the sensorial system and the codification used in the emitting and receiving stages. On the other hand, optimal estimation techniques have been proposed to avoid false alarms, based on Kalman and H_infin filtering. Principal component analysis is developed to validate the obstacle detection, and to improve the accuracy of the system. A high reliability under adverse conditions is obtained with the barrier, it being possible to detect the presence of obstacles, and to report on their position