Railway Communication Network Research Articles

Thermal stress simulation analysis of aerospace optical fibers and connectors and related extensions to high-speed railway area

Aerospace optical cables and fiber-optic connectors have numerous advantages (e.g., low loss, wide transmission frequency band, large capacity, light weight, and excellent resistance to electromagnetic interference). They can achieve optical communication interconnections and high-speed bidirectional data transmission between optical terminals and photodetectors in space, ensuring the stability and reliability of data transmission during spacecraft operations in orbit. They have become essential components in high-speed networking and optically interconnected communications for spacecrafts. Thermal stress simulation analysis is important for evaluating the temperature stress concentration phenomenon resulting from temperature fluctuations, temperature gradients, and other factors in aerospace optical cables and connectors under the combined effects of extreme temperatures and vacuum environments. Considering this, advanced optical communication technology has been widely used in high-speed railway communication networks to transmit safe, stable and reliable signals, as high-speed railway optical communication in special areas with extreme climates, such as cold and high-temperature regions, requires high-reliability optical cables and connectors. Therefore, based on the finite element method, comprehensive comparisons were made between the thermal distributions of aerospace optical cables and J599III fiber optic connectors under different conditions, providing a theoretical basis for evaluating the performance of aerospace optical cables and connectors in space environments and meanwhile building a technical foundation for potential optical communication applications in the field of high-speed railways.

EMI and IEMI Impacts on the Radio Communication Network of Electrified Railway Systems: A Critical Review

The electrified railway system has been rapidly rolled out in many countries and regions in the past decades, along with the transportation decarbonization agenda. The latest development in power electronics and electrical railway systems has increased the risks of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and intentional EMI (IEMI) emissions, introducing new challenges to the railway radio communications network. It is vital to have a robust and reliable railway communication network that can be resistant and immune to these interferences for the safe and efficient operation of modern railway systems. Yet, the source and new features of EMI and IEMI emerging along with the latest technological development have not been thoroughly investigated and understood. This review paper aims to fill the research gap. First, railway communications systems are introduced. The EMI and IEMI are discussed at the whole system level, and the corresponding impacts on the signaling and communication systems are reviewed comprehensively. Current electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) methods are surveyed, and challenges of tackling the impacts of EMI and IEMI on the signaling and communication systems are discussed. Finally, future research directions are outlined.

Blockchain enabled zero trust based authentication scheme for railway communication networks

With the introduction of emerging technologies such as cloud computing, the railway communication network has the characteristics of complex structure and blurred boundaries, which leads to a series of security threats including information leakage and malicious access. Specifically, the third-party cloud services are difficult to be supervised, and network traffic is untrustworthy. To ensure system security, we propose a zero-trust security model in this paper. Then, we introduce blockchain and Merkle tree to build a distributed identity storage scheme for guaranteeing reliable, confidential and efficient data updates, and improving authentication efficiency. Furthermore, the proxy was introduced for two-way authentication with cloud servers, so that internal and external threats could be counteracted. Moreover, reputation assessment mechanism has been adopted to reduce the possibility of nodes accessing malicious cloud services. Performance analysis demonstrated that the proposed security model is able to enhance the security, efficiency and stability of the system, and consequently can guarantee the safety and reliability of railway transportation.

Weighted Score Fusion Based LSTM Model for High-Speed Railway Propagation Scenario Identification

Propagation scenario identification is of vital significance for boosting the performance of future smart high-speed railway (HSR) communication networks. This paper investigates the HSR propagation scenario identification model, based on deep learning networks and feature fusion methods. With the assistance of railway long-term evolution (LTE) networks, we collected the channel impulse responses in four typical HSR scenarios including unobstructed viaduct, obstructed viaduct, station and suburban. Four channel characteristics involving power delay profile, root mean square (RMS) delay spread, RMS angular spread and Ricean K-factor form the datasets used for model training and testing. Then, a novel propagation scenario identification model is proposed by merging a weighted score based feature fusion method into the long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network. The hyper-parameters of the proposed model such as time window length and numbers of hidden units and layers are determined by autocorrelation analysis and cross-validation. Finally, the model performance is evaluated by focusing on the impact of feature selection, comparison of different feature fusion methods, and computational complexity. The evaluation results show that the proposed model has high identification accuracy but acceptable computational complexity.

Deep-Learning-Based Spatial–Temporal Channel Prediction for Smart High-Speed Railway Communication Networks

Intelligent channel prediction plays a key role in artificial intelligence (AI)-optimized or AI-native communication networks for smart high-speed railways (HSRs). This paper investigates the spatial-temporal prediction of channel state information (CSI) and channel statistical characteristics (CSCs) based on deep-learning (DL) for the future smart HSR communication network. A propagation-graph simulation method is used to generate datasets of CSI and CSCs for massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) channels in a HSR cutting scenario, and realistic channel measurements are used to validate the datasets. Then, single-step ahead and multi-step ahead prediction problems are formulated with the consideration of both spatial and temporal information hidden in the datasets. By exploiting the temporal and spatial correlations of the HSR mMIMO channel, a novel spatial-temporal channel prediction model that combines the convolutional neural network (CNN) and convolutional long short-term memory (CLSTM) is proposed and called as Conv-CLSTM. Moreover, the hyper-parameters of the Conv-CLSTM model are determined by autocorrelation and similarity analysis and cross-validation. Finally, the performance of the Conv-CLSTM model is evaluated in terms of prediction accuracy and space and time computational complexity, and is compared with classical DL models. The evaluation results show that the proposed model has high prediction accuracy but acceptable computational complexity.

Performance of Base Stations in Railway Digital Radio Communication Networks

Base station (BS) is a terminal device of a radio communication network, while railway radio communications play an important role in ensuring safety of passenger and cargo transportation.A proposed method for calculating the performance of base stations in railway digital radio communication networks is intended to calculate for the BS the probabilities of being in certain state.BS was decomposed and such functional elements as circuit groups and a radio frequency path were identified, as well as the central module ensuring the exchange of information with elements of this BS and with other BSs. A detailed study of each element has increased accuracy of the proposed method. Following the Markov model, BS is presented as a system in which all possible states are considered. Models for BS with two and three circuit groups have been constructed. The parameters of each functional element of the model can be obtained through observation over a certain period. The solution of the system of equations for each of the models presented in the article will allow obtaining the values of the system being in a certain state. The obtained characteristics can be used to calculate the reliability of the entire radio communication network, and then to assess quality of service provided to the users of this network.Conclusions are made about the possibilities of using the obtained models when designing new railway communication networks and when calculating quality indices of existing ones. The proposed models can be applied not only to railway radio communication networks but also to mobile communication networks of commercial operators.

Development of a Novel Damage Detection Framework for Truss Railway Bridges Using Operational Acceleration and Strain Response

Railway bridges are an integral part of any railway communication network. As more and more railway bridges are showing signs of deterioration due to various natural and artificial causes, it is becoming increasingly imperative to develop effective health monitoring strategies specifically tailored to railway bridges. This paper presents a new damage detection framework for element level damage identification, for railway truss bridges, that combines the analysis of acceleration and strain responses. For this research, operational acceleration and strain time-history responses are obtained in response to the passage of trains. The acceleration response is analyzed through a sensor-clustering-based time-series analysis method and damage features are investigated in terms of structural nodes from the truss bridge. The strain data is analyzed through principal component analysis and provides information on damage from instrumented truss elements. A new damage index is developed by formulating a strategy to combine the damage features obtained individually from both acceleration and strain analysis. The proposed method is validated through a numerical study by utilizing a finite element model of a railway truss bridge. It is shown that while both methods individually can provide information on damage location, and severity, the new framework helps to provide substantially improved damage localization and can overcome the limitations of individual analysis.

Seven Challenges for Communication in Modern Railway Systems

To meet the increasing demands for passenger data rates, modern railway communication networks face significant challenges. The advent of 5G communications after the long-term evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) systems provides several technological advances to address these challenges. In this paper, after reviewing the main 5G communication aspects for modern railways, we describe seven main challenges faced by train connectivity, and discuss appropriate solutions. Specifically, we elaborate on techniques for ensuring connectivity and energy efficiency for the passengers' user equipment (UE) through the use of mobile relays (MRs) on top of the train wagons in conjunction with intelligent resource allocation.

Distributed Robust Event-Triggered Control Strategy for Multiple High-Speed Trains With Communication Delays and Input Constraints

In order to improve the operation efficiency of high-speed trains and save communication resources of the railway communication network, this article proposes an on-demand event-triggered strategy for coordinated control of multiple high-speed trains (MHSTs) subject to communication delays and input constraints. The MHSTs are modeled as a leader-following multiagent system and each train exchanges their states with its neighboring trains through a communication network. Then, an event-triggered scheme is designed to determine when the states of a train are transmitted to its local controller and neighboring trains. With this strategy fused into the dynamic model of MHSTs, a robust coordinated control scheme consisting of an event-triggered processor and a control protocol is presented. By utilizing Lyapunov-Krasovskii theory, a sufficient condition is achieved to guarantee MHST system stability and the safety requirements under communication delays and input constraints. A co-design algorithm for obtaining the controller gain and the event-triggered weighting matrix is proposed. Finally, numerical examples are carried out to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Research on data redundancy of railway communication network management

Communication; Network management; Data; The router

Measurement-Based Markov Modeling for Multi-Link Channels in Railway Communication Systems

Multi-link transmission is one of the promising communication techniques capable of improving system capacity and cell-edge user spectral efficiency in railway communication networks. The performance of multi-link transmission heavily depends on the propagation characteristics of radio channels, especially the correlation property between multiple radio channels. Thus, it is important to characterize the multi-link channel in railway communication networks. In this paper, extensive wideband measurements in a viaduct railway environment at 460 MHz with two base stations and one mobile station are performed. Large-scale parameters (LSPs), including large-scale fading, Ricean $K$ -factor, delay spread, and angle spread, are extracted from the measurement data. Based on the measurements, auto-correlation and cross-correlation properties of each LSP are investigated. A Markov-based multi-link tapped-delay-line model for railway communications is established, where the Markov chains are introduced to model the birth and death state of multipath components in multi-link scenarios. Using the relationship between the correlation coefficients of complex random variables (RVs), the amplitude and the phase of taps with different delays are modeled as correlated RVs. The proposed channel model is implemented and validated with measurements.

Measurements and Analysis of Short-Term Fading Behavior in High-Speed Railway Communication Networks

This paper presents the analysis of short-term fading behavior in high-speed railway (HSR) communication networks, based on passive channel measurements. A long-term evolution (LTE)-based channel sounding system is used to measure the propagation characteristics in a dedicated HSR LTE network with multiple scenarios, such as rural, station, and suburban, and with the echo channel effect (ECE) caused by the same signaling from different remote radio units. The measurement data are partitioned into four cases, involving rural, rural with the ECE, station, and suburban, aiming to investigate the impact of two factors, e.g., the scenario and the ECE, on the propagation characteristics. Based on the processed data, the short-term fading behavior is characterized in terms of the fading severity and the time-frequency-space dispersion in the four cases. The distance-dependent models and statistical models of Ricean K-factor, delay spread, Doppler spread, and angular spread are proposed and compared with previous paper. The presented results will be useful in time-frequency-space channel modeling for future HSR mobile communication systems.

Planning Optimization of the Distributed Antenna System in High-Speed Railway Communication Network Based on Improved Cuckoo Search

The network planning is a key factor that directly affects the performance of the wireless networks. Distributed antenna system (DAS) is an effective strategy for the network planning. This paper investigates the antenna deployment in a DAS for the high-speed railway communication networks and formulates an optimization problem which is NP-hard for achieving the optimal deployment of the antennas in the DAS. To solve this problem, a scheme based on an improved cuckoo search based on dimension cells (ICSDC) algorithm is proposed. ICSDC introduces the dimension cell mechanism to avoid the internal dimension interferences in order to improve the performance of the algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed ICSDC-based scheme obtains a lower network cost compared with the uniform network planning method. Moreover, ICSDC algorithm has better performance in terms of the convergence rate and accuracy compared with the conventional cuckoo search algorithm, the particle swarm optimization, and the firefly algorithm.

The Effect of Power Adjustment on Handover in High-Speed Railway Communication Networks

In future 5G communication systems, supporting high-quality wireless communications in high-mobility scenarios becomes very essential. Although many existing works indicate that increasing transmit power is able to reduce the handover failure probability (referred to as the power greedy scheme) through improving the radio condition or received signal strength, it goes against the requirement of green system design. In this paper, we investigate the effect of power adjustment on handover performance from the perspective of reducing the “uncertainty” in handover procedure in high-speed railway communications systems by embedding it into the existing handover procedure. It is shown that, with power adjustment, the handover performance can be improved without increasing extra energy consumption. The power adjustment-assisted handover scheme is applied to a high-speed railway scenario with distributed antenna system (DAS) cells. Both the blanket transmission-based handover scheme and the remote antenna unit selection transmission-based handover scheme are discussed for DAS cells. To evaluate the performance, the handover probability, handover failure probability, and communication interruption probability associated with two handover schemes are analyzed. Moreover, two new performance metrics, named handover occurrence probability and handover failure occurrence probability, are defined to efficiently evaluate the handover performance versus the position of the train. Both the analytical and the numerical results show that introducing power adjustment into handover gives ability to achieve a better performance compared with the current existing ones. Moreover, the power adjustment-assisted handover scheme is capable of achieving the similar system performance to existing power greedy scheme but without increasing energy consumption.

An Adaptive Power Control Scheme for Multicast Service in Green Cellular Railway Communication Network

Along with emerging increasing multimedia service need from the big amount of users in the train, wireless cellular railway network has big energy saving potential with its own specific characteristics, which is widely deployed over the world. Enhanced Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (E-MBMS) is a prevalent solution for high speed data handling. In this paper, to achieve an energy efficient solution for wireless cellular railway network, we proposed an optimal power control solution to adjust eNodeB's transmission power adaptively based on actual Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) for Multimedia Broadcast multicast service Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) at User Equipment (UE) side when provide E-MBMS. We established the system model and proposed the optimization algorithms to calculate the E-MBMS transmit power. We also designed the geometry group scheme to significantly reduce the calculation effort. And proposed the Mobility offset parameter to cope with high speed mobility of the train and variation of signal level. Finally, Simulation results showed that this solution can be a good way for high network energy efficiency and can dynamically adjust the output power for the multicast service in the wireless cellular railway communication network.

A dynamic energy-saving strategy for green cellular railway communication network

Energy saving is seldom contemplated in cellular railway communication network because safety is always the main focus. However, we analyzed train schedules and determined that the cellular railway network had considerable potential for energy saving. We designed a simple train detection strategy using the handover procedure to initiate power saving. We also proposed a flexible and effective solution based on the mealy-type finite state machine to transit the cell state between an energy-saving mode and a full running mode. The key design principle of the proposed solution consists in forming an orthogonal group and cluster, based on network deployment and train schedules, to simplify the state transition. Our evaluations using a real network deployment led to a significant energy saving of up to 33% with different power-saving strategies and factors.

Analysis of the Communication System SDH Transmission Network Fault and its Maintenance Technology

SDH transmission mode is a new concept of digital transmission. SDH transmission network can not only improve the efficiency of network management, and can greatly improve the utilization of network resources, reduce the management cost and maintenance cost, to ensure that the network operation and maintenance is flexible operation, reliable and efficient. Social and economic development promotes the development of railway transportation in our country, and the combined railway transportation with communication technology, making up a highly digital railway communication network. In the railway communication network, most of which the transmission technology of SDH transmission network has been adopted. SDH transmission network plays an important role in railway communication network.

국내 철도 통신망의 문제점 분석 및 개선방안 연구

현재 국내 철도는 철도 통신망의 여러 기능을 통합하고 보완할 뿐만 아니라, 유선으로 구축된 통신망을 무선화하는 통합무선망에 대한 연구가 진행 중이다. 또한 통합무선망 구축에 필요한 철도 주파수 확보를 위한 활동이 진행 중이다. 본 논문은 국내 철도 통신망의 문제점을 분산된 네트워크 구조, 제한된 기능, 상이한 통신방식, 통신방식의 기술적 한계, 비면허 대역 사용을 중심으로 분석한다. 그리고 국내 철도통신과 비교하여, 세계 철도통신의 현황 및 동향에 대하여 분석한다. 분석된 문제점을 해결하기 위한 개선방안에 대하여 제안하고, 이에 대한 기대효과를 도출한다. The research about the Korean integrated wireless network for railways is in progress. The network integrates and complements the various railway functions. In addition, the network is trying to change from wire communication to radio communication. The activities for the railway frequency acquisition are also in progress for the implementation of the network. This paper analyzes the problems for the Korean railway communication networks. The problems revolve around the dispersed network structure, the limited functions, the different communication methods, the technology limitation for the communication methods, and the usage of the non-licensed band. Subsequently, we explain the current state and trend for the foreign communication of the railways. This paper suggests improvement plans for the problems and also explains the expected efficiency for the improvement plans.

A survey of railway signaling and control

Railway signaling originated from the basic needs of safety, but its development has permitted the exploitation of wider facilities, in the form of considerable economies and increased efficiency, coupled with the attainment of higher speeds and improved control. It is closely supported by telecommunications techniques, both in ancillary functions and in characteristic railway communication networks, using land and radio transmission media. Signaling is based on the principle of "fail-safe" and complete reliability; at first it was effected by mechanical means, but subsequently supported and replaced by electrical means, the latter method proving itself, by means of specialized application and method, to be the most suitable for the very exacting performance demanded. The introduction and improvement of electronics is now playing an increasing part in the operation of railways, and holds much promise for greater application in the future, taking under its wing not only control and peripheral installations as they are known today, but also new capabilities in the form of revenue collection, data handling, and streamlined administration. The recent trend is toward automation, to which railway systems are particularly adaptable, but there are still many unsolved problems. In signaling and conununications, managements have not only the best possible insurance policy, but an indispensable tool for commercial viability; these two assets will play a large and vital role in the imminent transport explosion of the future.