The tech that helps vehicles from bumping into each other

Introduction:

• Vehicular traffic is a mainstay of modern life. Today, we have traffic on the road, in the air, across various water bodies, and in space.
• For better or for worse, we can’t roll this traffic back very much, so we have collision avoidance systems (CAS) instead.

Collision Avoidance System (CAS):

• It is a collection of technologies to help a vehicle steer clear of another vehicle or obstacle.
• For example, a CAS device fit on a train will be designed to help that train avoid colliding with another train.
• Information: Most CAS devices require two pieces of information, preferably in real-time. The locations of all the other vehicles and the location of this vehicle relative to those vehicles.
• Over the years, scientists and engineers have developed instruments that collect this information and transmit it and other instruments that receive this information and aid in the navigation of the vehicle.
• Such a vehicle can be driven by a human, in which case CAS’s purpose would be to assist the driver, or be autonomous.

CAS for land based vehicles:

• For instance, two cars fitted with CAS moving in sequence. The Back Car will be tracking the speed of the Front Car, the distance between the two cars, and the speed of the Back Car.
• If the separation between the two cars is expected to drop within a certain value in a stipulated time frame, the CAS may be empowered to deploy an automatic emergency brake without the driver’s intervention.
• In order to achieve this, the CAS will have to be connected to the Back Car’s braking system and be able to override the driver’s instructions.
• It will also be connected to the Back Car’s speed metre as well as equipped with a sensing technology to track the Front Car, like RADAR, LIDAR, and/or cameras with object recognition.

Kavach:

• It is the home-grown CAS for the Indian Railways.
• Kavach’s components perform the same functions that CAS does in cars, but the railway system is more complicated.
• Components: Kavach has three main components: Onboard, Trackside, and Communications.
• We can regroup them as Computers, Communications, and Control.
• Computers: There is a computer onboard the train plus two other computers for station masters.
• Of the latter, one is the master computer: It collates and processes information from signals and interlocking points and sends its output to the locomotive computer.
• Remote Interface Unit: Collates and processes information from various points on the railway network, and eventually transmits its data to the master computer; it doesn’t communicate directly with the locomotive computer.
• The locomotive computer receives information from two other sources.
• (i) From the two Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) readers mounted on its underside.

The tracks will be fit with RFID cards at fixed intervals. When the locomotive passes over the cards, the readers will scan the cards and retrieve the train’s location and a track ID number, and send them to the onboard computer;

(ii) Additionally, onboard computers can communicate with each other if their respective locomotives are nearby.

• Taken together, the system facilitates communications between stations and locomotive pilots, facilitates pilots’ decision-making (with or without having to visually spot another train), maintains speed, issues sounds and alarms when passing through areas with low visibility, and applies emergency brakes when a collision is expected.
• Communication: The remote interface unit transmits data to the master computer via fibre-optic cables.
• The master computer communicates with the locomotive computer via ultra-high frequency radio.
• The onboard computer uses GSM-Railway to communicate with the overall network management system (software system that animates the Kavach CAS), including to authenticate its communications with nearby master computers and locomotive computers.
• Control: As with cars, the onboard computer is connected to various other parts of the locomotive, including its braking system and an alarm to alert pilots.
• While operating the locomotive, pilots will use a bespoke interface like a digital screen that relays information from the computer and receives inputs from the pilots.
• The station master will have a similar interface, with the ability to send SOS messages as well.

CAS in ships and aircraft:

• The Traffic Collision Avoidance System for aircraft also has a computer-communication-control setup as for trains.
• Transponder: A device that, when it receives a radio-frequency ping, produces a response. Using the transponders of various other aircraft, the host aircraft can build up a 3D view of the air traffic around itself.
• Alerts: If another aircraft is within 48 seconds away on a potential collision course, the computer sounds a traffic advisory that requires the pilots to visually identify the other aircraft.

If the aircraft is less than 30 seconds away, the computer requires the pilots to make a resolution: report the alert as soon as possible to air traffic control and manoeuvre the aircraft to a safer course, if required contrary to air traffic control’s instructions; and revert to the original course once the resolution is complete.

• RADAR Altimeters: To sense the distance to the ground and another system to alert pilots to ‘tall’ features like towers and ground antennae.

• Ships: Use a combination of visual sighting and radar to steer clear of each other, while these operations are similarly assisted with the use of additional systems. Two important ones are AIS and LRIT.
• AIS (Automatic Identification System): Base stations on land track data received from transceivers onboard ships to infer their location, speed, and bearing, and transmit the details to each vessel.
• LRIT (Long Range Identification and Tracking): According to the International Maritime Organisation, a ship on an international voyage is required to report its location, local time, and onboard equipment once every six hours to the authorities in the country under whose flag the ship is sailing.

This data is distributed to contracting governments and to operators of search-and-rescue missions via the International LRIT Data Exchange.

Satellites role in CAS:

• Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system: An important alternative to the transponder-based system for aircraft, which collects and processes information shared actively by each aircraft via satellites to understand the relative location, bearing, and speed of a group of aircraft.
• S-AIS: AIS for ships can be facilitated by satellites as well; such S-AIS systems are useful to track ships that are too far from AIS stations on land.
• GPS: The advent of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) had a transformative effect on navigation and collision avoidance worldwide, and which some countries have augmented with systems of their own to cater to specific national needs.
• For example, India already envisages the use of its NavIC constellation of navigational satellites to assist road and railway traffic.
• The CAS onboard the cars can be assisted by GPS data.
• The spatial frequency of GPS for civilian applications is restricted to 10 metres, which is not good enough for CAS. But systems can overcome this limitation using differential GPS capabilities, which can improve the resolution to less than a metre.

Tungabhadra dam

Context:

• After a crest gate of Tungabhadra dam was washed away, the Karnataka government has decided to constitute a dam safety committee to study the safety aspects of all the reservoirs in the State.

Tungabhadra dam:

• Location: Also known as Pampa Sagar, it is a water reservoir constructed across the Tungabhadra River in Karnataka.
• It is a multipurpose dam serving irrigation, electricity generation, flood control, etc. for the state.
• It is India’s largest stone masonry dam and one of the only two non-cement dams in the country, the other being the Mullaperiyar Dam in Kerala.
• The dam is built of surki mortar, a combination of mud and limestone, commonly used at the time of its construction.
• The dam was a joint project undertaken in 1949 by the erstwhile Kingdom of Hyderabad and Madras Presidency.
• To relieve the intensity of famines in the region of Rayalaseema, then comprising the districts of Bellary, Anantapur, Kurnool and Cuddapah, proposals were made in 1860 to utilise the waters of the Tungabhadra through a storage reservoir and a system of canals to provide irrigation for the lands.
• In 1860, Sir Arthur Cotton of Madras Presidency originally conceived the Tungabhadra project.
• Now, it is the life-line of drought prone districts of Bellary, Koppal and Raichur in Karnataka and Anantapur, Cuddapah and Kurnool in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

Tungabhadra river:

• River Tungabhadra derives its name from two streams viz., the Tunga, and the Bhadra, which rise in the Western Ghats.
• The ancient name of the river was Pampa.
• The river after the influence of the two streams near Shimoga, runs for about 531 Km till it joins the river Krishna at Sangamaleshwaram in Andhra Pradesh.
• It runs for 382 Km in Karnataka, forms the boundary between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh for 58 Km and further runs for the next 91 Km in Andhra Pradesh. (It also runs a few kms in newly formed Telangana state).
• The total catchment area of the river is 69,552 Sq Km up to its confluence with Krishna and it is 28,177 Sq Km up to Tungabhadra Dam.
• It is influenced chiefly by the South-West monsoon.
• It is a perennial river but the summer flows dwindle to as low as 2.83 to 1.42 cumec (100 to 50 cusec).
• Tributaries: Its Major tributaries are the Bhadra, the Haridra, the Vedavati, the Tunga, the Varda and the Kumdavathi.
• It flows in a more or less northwest direction before joining the eastern river Krishna. The Krishna River finally ends into the Bay of Bengal.

Tungabhadra Board:

• Tungabhadra Board is an Inter-State project (States comprising Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka & Telangana) aimed at harnessing the waters of the Tungabhadra River for various purposes including irrigation, hydro-electricity generation, fisheries, and tourism development.

National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)

Context:

• The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras is the best educational institution in the country for the sixth time since 2019, shows the overall ranking based on parameters identified and defined in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).

NIRF:

• The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is a methodology adopted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now the Ministry of Education), Government of India, to rank institutions of higher education in India.
• The framework was approved by the MHRD and launched by the then Minister of Human Resource Development in 2015.
• This framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country.
• The methodology draws from the overall recommendations, broad understanding arrived at by a Core Committee set up by MHRD, to identify the broad parameters for ranking various universities and institutions.
• Parameters: The parameters broadly cover
• Teaching, Learning and Resources
• Research and Professional Practices
• Graduation Outcomes
• Outreach and Inclusivity and
• Perception
• The parameters have been grouped into five clusters and these clusters were assigned certain weights. These weights depend on the type of institution.
• There are separate rankings for different types of institutions depending on their areas of operation like universities and colleges, engineering institutions, management institutions, pharmacy institutions and architecture institutions.
• Depending on their areas of operation, institutions have been ranked under 10+ different categories – overall, university, colleges, engineering, management, pharmacy, law, medical, architecture, dental and research.
• Note: In its first rankings released in 2016, NIRF had four categories (Universities, Engineering, Management and Pharmacy).

2024 NIRF Rankings:

• IIT Madras: First position in engineering for the ninth year since 2016.
• Bangalore: Top institution under both the universities and research categories.
• Categories: The ranks were given in 16 categories this year, three more than last year. Open universities, skill universities, and State public universities are the three new categories.
• IIM Ahmedabad: Top management institute
• AIIMS New Delhi: Best place to study medical sciences
• IIT Bombay: Best ‘innovational institution’
• IIT Roorkee: First position in architecture and planning
• National Law School of India University, Bengaluru: Best law school

Securities Transaction Tax (STT)

News:

• India’s net direct tax collections’ growth accelerated to 22.5% by August 11, from 19.54% a month ago, led by a 30% spike in Personal Income Tax (PIT) revenues and a 111% surge in Securities Transaction Tax (STT) receipts, even as corporate tax inflows grew a mere 5.9% from last year.

Background:

• When people started evading capital gains tax by not declaring their profits on the sale of stocks, the Finance Act, way back in 2004, introduced a tax called the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) as a clean and efficient way of collecting taxes from financial market transactions.

Budget 2024 Update:

• With effect from 1 October 2024, the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on futures is proposed to be increased from 0.0125% to 0.02%, and the STT on options has been proposed to be increased from 0.0625% to 0.1%.

Securities Transaction Tax (STT):

• STT is a kind of financial transaction tax which is similar to tax collected at source (TCS).
• STT is a direct tax levied on every purchase and sale of securities that are listed on the recognised stock exchanges in India.
• STT is governed by the Securities Transaction Tax Act (STT Act), and the STT Act has specifically listed down various taxable securities transactions i.e., transactions on which STT is leviable.
• Taxable securities include equity, derivatives, and unit of equity-oriented mutual fund.
• It also includes unlisted shares sold under an offer for sale to the public included in IPO and where such shares are subsequently listed in stock exchanges.
• STT is an amount to be paid over and above transaction value and hence, increases transaction value.
• STT is required to be collected by a recognised stock exchange or by the prescribed person in the case of every mutual fund or the lead merchant banker in the case of an initial public offer.
• Each purchase and sale of shares listed on a domestic and recognised stock market is subject to a securities transaction tax.
• Under the STT act, all stock market transactions involving equities or equity derivatives such as futures and options are subject to taxation.
• When a share transaction is completed, STT is levied.

Derivative:

• It is a financial instrument whose value is derived from the value of an underlying asset, index, rate, or other reference.
• Derivatives can be used for
• Hedging against risk
• Speculating on future price movements, and
• Achieving portfolio diversification
• The two main classes of derivatives are futures and options.

Futures:

• Futures are financial contracts that obligate the buyer to purchase, or the seller to sell, an asset at a predetermined future date and price.
• Futures contracts can be based on various underlying assets, including commodities (like agricultural products, metals), financial instruments (like stocks, bonds), or market indices.
• Futures contracts are traded on organized exchanges.
• The exchange acts as an intermediary, ensuring the fulfillment of contract obligations.
• A small upfront payment, known as margin, is made when entering into a futures contract.
• The buyer and seller are required to settle the contract by paying or delivering the agreed-upon amount at the contract’s expiration.

Options:

• Options are financial contracts that provide the holder with the right (but not the obligation) to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price (strike price) before or at the option’s expiration date.
• Call Option: A call option gives the holder the right to buy the underlying asset.
• Put Option: A put option gives the holder the right to sell the underlying asset.
• Flexibility: Options provide flexibility to the buyer, who can choose whether to exercise the option based on market conditions.
• Premium Payment: The buyer of an option pays a premium to the seller for the right conveyed by the option. The seller, in turn, receives the premium but has an obligation to fulfill the contract if the buyer decides to exercise the option.