International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics

Volume 116 No. 10 2017, 461-470

ISSN: 1311-8080 (printed version); ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)
url: http://www.ijpam.eu
Special Issue
ijpam.eu

An Efficient Framework to Detect Cracks in Rail Tracks Using Neural

Network Classifier

R. Manikandan 1*, M. Balasubramanian 2 and S. Palanivel 3

1
Research student, Annamalai University, Tamilnadu, India
23
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Annamalai University,
Tamilnadu, India

*E-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRACT

Objectives: The detection of defects or cracks in rail track plays an important role in railway
management, which prevents train accidents in both summer and rainy seasons. During summer, the
cracks are formed on the track which slips the train wheel. In rainy environment, the rail tracks are
affected by corrosion which also produced cracks on it. In present method, the cracks or defects are
detected Echo image display device or semiconduction magnetism sensor devices which consumes
more time. The proposed method enhances the track image using adaptive histogram equalization
technique and further feature are extracted from the enhanced rail track image. These extracted
features are trained and classified using neural network classifier which classifies the rail track image
into either cracked or non-cracked image. The novelty of this work is to use soft computing approach
for the detection of cracks in rail tracks. This methodology is trained by several crack images which
are obtained from different environment. This method automatically classifies the current image based
on the trained patterns, thus improves the classification accuracy. The performance of the proposed
system achieves the accuracy rate of 94.9%, with respect to manually crack detected and segmented
images.

Keywords: Cracks, segmentation, classifier, rail tracks, train accidents

1 INTRODUCTION

In the modern world, the role of railway network is an essential for the people around the world. The
railway system consists of infrastructure, development and maintenance. The infrastructure of the railway
network is the planning and construction of the rail tracks and establishing their contacts in railway junction.
The development of the railway network is used to extent the tracks to the rural and interior areas of the village.
The rail tracks are maintained by maintenance division of the railway network system. The rail tracks are
severely affected by corrosion due to the air and floods during rainy season. They make cracks on the rail track
which leads the accident of the trains. The quality of the rail track is important to prevent such defects in rail
track and these cracks must be frequently checked to avoid accidents. Figure 1 shows the procedure for
capturing the rail track, in which the pre-checking vehicle is passed over the running track of the rail. The light
source in this vehicle passes the light on the track and these running rail tracks are captured by high definition
digital camera which is located on the vehicle.
Figure 2(a) shows the normal rail track which does not contain any cracks on it and Figure 2(b) shows
the rail track which contains cracks on it.
The detection of rail crack in track is achieved by railway operators and lot of conventional techniques
was proposed to detect the cracks in railway track. In conventional methods, Echo image display device or
semiconduction magnetism sensor devices are used to detect these defects. It has several limitations as slow
processing and it is not suitable for low resolution rail track images. These limitations are overcome by
proposing an automated defect detection system using classification approach in this paper. The methodology

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proposed in this paper uses neural network classifier which detects the cracks in rail track image using the
features of the cracked and non-cracked samples of the rail track images.
This paper is organized as, Section 2 discusses various conventional techniques to detect the defects in
rail tracks, Section 3 proposes an efficient technique to detect the cracks in rail track using classifiers, Section 4
discusses the experimental results and Section 5 concludes the paper.

2 LITERATURE SURVEY

Marino et al. [1] used hexagonal technique and two multilayer perceptron neural classifiers to inspect
the bolt system in real time rail track image. The authors achieved 95% of accuracy for the detection and
classification of bolts which connected tracks in continuous rail. Thomas et al. [2] detected rolling contact
fatigue type of cracks or defects in running rail tracks. The authors constructed non-destructive rail inspection
methodology to detect the cracks and defects in the obtained image from video sequences. Qingyong Li et al. [3]
proposed a methodology to detect the surface defect of the rail track using visual inspection system. The authors
developed projection profile model to detect the defects based on transversal projection profile technique and
they applied different contrast enhancement approaches on the rail track images. The authors achieved 80.41%
of Recall rate to analyze the defects in real time track image using their proposed model.
Maria Molodova et al. [4] proposed a fully automated method for the detection and segmentation of
squats in rail system. The authors constructed an efficient method for the railway system by incorporating the
automation technique in it. Ze Liu et al. [5] applied the basic principles of Electromagnetic Tomography on rail
track image to detect the crack in their running path. The linear backprojection algorithm was constructed to
classify the given test source rail track image into either normal or cracked. Based on this classification of rail
track, Tikhonov regularization algorithm was applied to validate the experimental results. Yong Shi et al. [6]
developed an efficient rail crack detection system using random forest classification technique. The authors
extracted integral channel features from real time rail track image and these extracted features were used to
detect the crack or defect in rail track images. The topological error of the proposed method was analyzed using
the crack detection method. Zhu Qingbo [7] used Pavement Crack Detection Algorithm to detect and segment
the crack in railway track through image processing techniques. The noises and other interferences were
detected and removed before the segmentation of cracks in rail track to enhance the performance of the crack
detection system. Rubel Biswas et al. [11] proposed Harris – Stephen feature detection based Support Vector
Machine (SVM) classification approach for the detection of missing fasteners in rail track images. The authors
achieved 81.25% of classification accuracy for their proposed missing fastener detection algorithm. Jiajia Liu et
al. [12] used SVM classification method to classify the test rail track image into either tack with fastener or
track without fasteners. The authors achieved recall rate of 87.3% for detecting the missing fasteners in rail track
images.
The following points are observed from the conventional methods and they are stated below as,
 The segmentation accuracy of the crack detection system in rail track is low.
 The conventional methods detected the crack only on high resolution rail track images.
The classifier based rail track detection technique is proposed in this paper to overcome the limitations
of the conventional methods. The methodology proposed in this paper detects the crack in both low and high
resolution rail track images.

3 PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
In this paper, cracks in railway track are detected in an efficient methodology. The proposed method
contains preprocessing, Gabor transform, feature extraction, classification and segmentation. The flow of crack
detection and segmentation methodology is depicted in Figure 3.

3.1 Preprocessing

It is used to enhance the track image to detect the crack in track. The captured track image is converted
into grey scale image. Adaptive histogram Equalization technique [5, 7] is applied on the track image to enhance
the crack regions in track. It enhances the contrast of the track image which transforms the image value into its
intensity value.
3.2 Gabor Transform

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The multi resolution transform is used to convert the spatial domain image into multi resolution image
which is in the form of amplitude, frequency and phase. Conventional multi resolution transforms such as
Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Contourlet and Curvelet converted the spatial domain image into multi
resolution image with low accuracy. In order to overcome such limitations of the conventional classifiers, Gabor
transform is used in this paper to obtain the multi resolution image from the spatial domain rail track image.
In this paper, the Gabor kernels are designed with five scales 𝛾 ={1,2,3,4,} and four orientations
θ={45°, 90°, 120°, 180° }.The Gabor kernel(g(x,y)) is defined as,
2 2
𝑥 ′ +𝛾 𝑦 ′ 𝑥′
𝑔 𝑥, 𝑦 = exp 0.5 exp 𝑖 2𝜋 + 𝜑 (1)
2𝜎 2 𝜆

𝑥 ′ = 𝑥 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜃 + 𝑦 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃 (2)

𝑦 ′ = −𝑥 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃 + 𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜃 (3)
Where as, 𝛾 is the scaling factor which ranges from 1 to 4, 𝜑 is the orientation of the pixel and 𝜆 is the
adjustable parameter, varies between 0 and 1. The coordinates of each pixel is represented by x and y, σ is the
standard deviation.
The Gabor magnitude image and its phase or orientation image are shown in Figure 5(a) and Figure
5(b), respectively.

3.3 Feature Extraction

Features are extracted from the Gabor magnitude image and these are used to differentiate the cracked
track image from the non-cracked track image by means of its energy characteristics. In this paper, Grey Level
Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) features are extracted from the Gabor magnitude image for crack image
classifications.

3.3.1 GLCM features

The GLCM features are extracted from the GLCM matrix which can be constructed directly from the
Gabor magnitude image at different directions of the pixels such as 0°, 45°, 90° and 135° in the image. In this
paper, the GLCM matrix is constructed at the pixel orientations of 450. The maxima pixel value in the Gabor
magnitude image is chosen as the number of rows and columns in the GLCM matrix. Then, the values in GLCM
table are obtained by making 450 orientations at each pixel value in the Gabor orientation image. The following
GLCM feature are obtained from the GLCM matrix as,
Contrast = ∑ 𝑖 − 𝑗 2 × 𝑝 𝑖, 𝑗 (4)
Energy = ∑𝑝(𝑖, 𝑗)2 (5)
Entropy = − ∑ 𝑝 𝑖, 𝑗 [𝑙𝑜𝑔2 𝑝 𝑖, 𝑗 ] (6)
𝑝 𝑖,𝑗
Correlation = ∑(𝑖 − 𝜇𝑖)(𝑗 − 𝜇𝑗) [𝜎𝑖.𝜎𝑗 ] (7)

Where, „i‟ and „j‟ relates the row and column of the GLCM matrix and p(i,j) represents the
corresponding values in GLCM matrix.′ 𝜎′ depicts the variance of the GLCM matrix. 𝜎𝑖 is the variance of the
GLCM matrix with respect to index i and 𝜎𝑗 is the variance of the GLCM matrix with respect to index j.
µi and µj are the mean of the GLCM matrix with respect to row index i and column index j.
Table 1. GLCM features for normal and cracked rail track test image samples

GLCM features Cracked Non-cracked

Contrast 8.17×103 2.19×104

Correlation -0.0072 0.02

Energy 3.21×10-5 2.38×10-5

Homogeneity 0.092 0.012

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Table 1 shows the extracted GLCM features from the Gabor magnitude rail track image for the case of
normal and cracked rail track images for the sample images.
3.3.2 LBP features
This feature correlates the center pixel with its surrounding pixels. Each surrounding pixel is compared
with center pixel inorder to produce the binary patterns. Surrounding pixel is greater than the center pixel, it will
produce binary 1 and surrounding pixel is less than the center pixel, it will produce binary 0. These eight binary
bits generates the single decimal value as binary pattern. The extraction procedure of LBP feature for the center
pixel in 3*3 windows is given as,

𝐿𝐵𝑃 𝑓𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑙 𝑖𝑛 3 ∗ 3 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑤 = ∑𝑃−1

𝑝=0 𝑠 𝑔𝑝 − 𝑔𝑐 ∗ 2
𝑝
(8)

Where as, gp is surrounding pixels in 3*3 window, gc is the center pixel in 3*3 window and P is the
number of surrounding pixels for center pixel in 3*3 window.
The function„s‟ is given as,
𝑠 𝑔𝑝 − 𝑔𝑐 = 0; if 𝑔𝑝 > 𝑔𝑐
𝑠 𝑔𝑝 − 𝑔𝑐 = 1; if 𝑔𝑝 ≤ 𝑔𝑐 (9)

The extracted LBP feature from the Gabor transformed rail track image is given as input pattern for
neural network classifier.

3.4 Neural Network Classifier

Classifier is used to detect the running rail track image into either crack free or cracked image.
Conventional classifiers such as SVM, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) classified the rail track image for
defect detection with low classification accuracy. In this paper, Neural Network (NN) classifier is used for the
classification of rail track image into either crack free or cracked image. The NN classifier has two types as
Radial neural network and Feed Forward Back Propagation (FFBP) neural networks. This paper uses (FFBP)
neural networks for the detection of track images which can be operated in training and testing modes. In
training mode of this classifier, the extracted features from both cracked and crack free rail track images are
trained which produces trained pattern. In testing mode of this classifier, the extracted features from the running
rail track image is classified with respect to the trained pattern and its produces either low or high value. The
low value of this classifier indicates the test image is crack free and high value of this classifier indicates the test
image is cracked. Further, the cracks in the classifier image are detected using morphological operations. It
produces dilation and erosion images, which subtracts the eroded image (Figure 6(b)) from the dilated image
(Figure 6(a)) to obtain the cracked regions in the classified image (Figure 6(c)).
Figure 7(a) shows the Source track images, Figure 7(b) shows the Ground truth images and Figure 7(c)
shows the Crack detection by proposed method.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The proposed rail track crack detection system using feed forward neural network classifier is
simulated using MATLAB 2014 version with 1GB RAM in Intel Pentium Core-2-Duo processor. The
performance of the proposed crack detection system is analyzed in terms of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy
with respect to ground truth images. The performance evaluation parameters are given as,
Sensitivity (Se) = TP/ (TP+FN) (8)
Specificity (Sp) = TN/ (TN +FP) (9)
Accuracy (Acc) = (TP+TN) / (TP+FN+TN+FP) (10)
Where, TP is True Positive which is the number of correctly segmented crack pixels, TN is the True
Negative which is the number of correctly segmented non-crack pixels, FP is False Positive which is the number
of wrongly segmented crack pixels and FN is the False Negative which is the number of wrongly segmented
non-crack pixels in rail track. Table 2 shows the performance analysis of the proposed rail crack detection
system. The proposed system stated in this paper achieves 89.99% of sensitivity, 98.96% of specificity and
94.9% of accuracy. The proposed method is tested on 100 rail track images and the proposed method correctly
classifies 95 images. The classification accuracy of the proposed system is 95%.

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Table 2. Performance Analysis

Parameters Experimental Results (%)

Sensitivity 89.99

Specificity 98.96

Accuracy 94.9

Table 3 shows the performance comparisons of the proposed rail crack detection system with
conventional techniques as L. Qingyong et al. [3], L. Ze et al. [5] and Q. Zhu et al. [7]. The conventional
methods Q. Zhu et al. [7] achieved 81.27% of sensitivity, 91.28% of specificity and 87.75% of accuracy; Ze Liu
et al.5 achieved 78.93% of sensitivity, 94.96% of specificity and 87.98% of accuracy. L. Qingyong et al. [3]
achieved 82.18% of sensitivity, 95.37% specificity and 89.71% of accuracy. The reason behind the low
accuracy which was obtained by the conventional methods is its low clarity. Another main criteria is that the
present conventional methods detected and segmented the rail track crack in high resolution images only. The
proposed method for the detection of cracks in rail track works on both low and high resolution rail track
images. Q. Zhu et al. [7] method used Pavement Crack Detection Algorithm (PCDA) for the detection of cracks
in rail tracks. This method detected only outlier edges of the cracks in rail tracks which degraded the
performance of their proposed method. Hence, the accuracy rate of this method was low when compared with
the methodology stated in this paper. The proposed methodology stated in this paper detects interior and outlier
edges of the cracks in rail tracks which improves the accuracy rate. L. Ze et al. [5] and L. Qingyong et al. [3]
detected the cracks in rail tracks in an automated manner. Still, these methods are suitable for the detection of
cracks in high resolution images. These methods produced unsatisfactory results in low resolution images.
These limitations are overcome by the methodology proposed in this paper which is suitable for both low and
high resolution rail images.
Table 3. Performance comparisons

Parameters Sensitivity (%) Specificity (%) Accuracy (%)

Proposed Method 89.99 98.96 94.9

Q. Zhu et al.[7] 81.27 91.28 87.75

L. Ze et al. [5] 78.93 94.96 87.98

L. Qingyong et al. [3] 82.18 95.37 89.71

5 CONCLUSION
In this paper, feed forward neural network classifier based crack detection in rail track is proposed to
detect and segment the cracks or defects in rail track images. The proposed method enhances the track image
using adaptive histogram equalization technique and further feature are extracted from the enhanced rail track
image. These extracted features are trained and classified using neural network classifier which classifies the rail
track image into either cracked or non-cracked image. The proposed system stated in this paper achieves
89.99% of sensitivity, 98.96% of specificity and 94.9% of accuracy. In future, this work can be extended for the
detection of cracks in video images. The methodology presented in this paper can also be extended to detect the
missing fastener in rail tracks.

REFERENCES

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[1] F. Marino, A. Distante, P. Mazzeo, and E. Stella, “A real-time visual inspection system for railway
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Figure 1. Rail track capturing

(a)

(b)
Figure 2. Rail track images (a) Normal (b) with Cracks

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Figure 3. Proposed Crack Detection Systems

(a) (b)
Figure 4. (a) Source track image (b) Preprocessed track image

(a) (b)
Figure 5. (a) Gabor Magnitude image (b) Gabor Orientation image

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(a) (b) (c)

Figure 6. (a) Morphologically processed image dilated image (b) Eroded image (c) Crack segmented image

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 7. (a) Source track images (b) Ground truth images (c) Crack detection by proposed method

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