Towards Intelligent Train Control Systems

Abstract

Future train control systems are expected to support high speed railways, to be automated and intelligent. European Railway Traffic Management System (ERTSM) and European Train Control Systems (ETCS) provide a standard aimed at optimization of driving, constant control on the effect of actions taken for train safety and activating of train braking in case of emergency. Radio Block Center (RBC) is a central control in the ETCS ground topology and is responsible for the security of each train in its area. Currently, the RBC is proprietary equipment with monolithic design. In this paper, we propose a new disaggregated open architecture of RBC which enables embedding intelligence. The proposed architecture of intelligent RBC is based on separation of nonreal time functions and near real time functions. A use case illustrates the approach applicability. Some implementation issues are discussed.

Keywords

• high speed rails
• european train control systems
• network function virtualization
• artificial intelligence
• machine learning
• future rail mobile communication system