DTCN - A CONCEPT DESIGN FOR INDIAN RAILWAYS.DOCX KAPURTHALA A study on development of low cost Digital Train Communication Network for Indian Railways Akhilesh Misra, Chief Design Engineer Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala Government of India - Ministry of Railways Keywords: Abstract Train Communication In this paper, the author has attempted to study the requirements of train control networks and safety Network, TCN, Wired systems for application to high-speed rail travel for Indian Railways and present a concept design of a Train Bus, WTB, Train Train Digital Communication Network based upon common off the shelf (COTS) technologies for lower Communication & costs. Monitoring System, This study for the concept design of the COTS based TCN includes identification of sub-systems requiring TCMS, interoperability, the communication infrastructure, estimating the data loads and the characteristics and briefly explains IEC 61375, CANOpen, how the concept design shall be able to meet the identified requirements. A literature survey of similar Ethernet, TCNOpen, developmental efforts is also included. TCP/IP, Common Off the While the study was initiated, the IEC standard too has undergone revision. Therefore the study further Shelf, COTS, Controller compares the concept model with the guidelines of the revised IEC 61375. Area Network, CAN, For furthering the implementation of the proposed system on the Indian Railways, the author has also CAN Consist Network identified the need of setting up a validation test facility for compliance testing to ensure interoperability. CCN, Ethernet Train The scope, role and requirements of this facility are included as a part of recommendations in the paper. Bus, ETB This paper was originally written in 2013. However, the need for a DTCN standard is every more now. This paper has been reviewed and updated with the developments since its last writing. make this communication attempts difficult, resource Introduction intensive and expensive. Microprocessor based control equipment have been The availability of multiple manufacturers of introduced on the Indian Railways rolling stock starting equipment compounds the problem further as this 1990’s. These systems were built around a central creates innumerable combinations of equipment that processing core with wired analog and digital inputs. need to be integrated. These early systems were standalone and there was little need for communication between intelligent Significant resources are required to be spent towards systems. non-recurring expenditure for integration whenever new equipment is introduced or a configuration Lately a number of microprocessor based control change is required. systems have been introduced on the railway vehicles that need to interface, communicate and share Since Indian Railways manufactures a majority of the information with the other systems on the vehicle. required rolling stock and functions as a system However the legacy designs of existing equipment integrator it was imperative that action to standardize the communication systems be initiated. Printed: 14/02/2021 1 of 12 DTCN - A CONCEPT DESIGN FOR INDIAN RAILWAYS.DOCX KAPURTHALA The need was to adopt / customize or develop a Literature Survey common shared digital communication network for The field of communication technologies has been inter-connection between different onboard systems. developing at a rapid pace. This presents challenges The fact that Indian Railways has not yet adopted any for selection of technology that can be used for the particular standard for communication and equipment purpose described as the technology when selected interoperability, provides a unique opportunity to study shall continue to be in service for the life-cycle of the and develop and test a communication network system vehicles, which may vary from 20-35 years. suiting the current and the expected future needs. The demands on the technology for data Initially all focus was on adoption of the TCN to communications are highly conflicting. Maturity and IEC61375:2007 as it was developed and mature stability of the technology platform is required standard made just for this purpose. However during simultaneously with support for higher data bandwidth the initial discussions with the stakeholders it was seen which is available only on the latest technology, most that such an adoption had significant issues primarily of which is still developmental. due to: A literature survey was done to gather information and 1. Cost of equipment opinion of the persons who have worked on such issues. 2. Non-availability of local compliance testing facilities, thereby increasing cost of conformance testing The standard document IEC-61375:2007 was significantly. selected as the starting point. The standard is stable mature and implemented. The standard offers 3. Does not provide adequate data bandwidth to features implemented especially for control and support newer applications. monitoring a train consist. The definition 4. Proprietary extensions by equipment manufacturers encompasses almost all aspects in a layer by layer preventing interoperability. approach based on the OSI model. 5. Poor supporting ecosystem for equipment and Since the work was focused on the diesel electric expertise. locomotives, corresponding standards used on the It was felt that these factors would have a significant AAR were also studied. AAR-S-590(2008) was found bearing on the overall equipment manufacturing costs to be very generic leaving a lot to the implementers. and maintenance issues in the field and also the design This did not appear to offer the level of definition that severely limits deployment of high bandwidth was planned for the project. applications. The article titled Ethernet as a Train Bus by Manfred This project was thus initiated with an aim to develop Schmitz, CTO, MEN Mikro Elektronik GmbH details such a network system using COTS equipment to the need for communication networks onboard trains. circumvent the issues listed earlier. The article discuses the development of the TCN standard and also points out the shortcomings. This paper summarizes the initial study done for the Different types of Ethernet deployments have been development / adoption of a standard for train compared. The non-deterministic characteristics of communication networks for Indian Railways. This work Ethernet have been stated as one of the major is still in progress and many of the details reported here drawbacks for use as a control network for time critical are subject to change along the course of the project. applications. The article points out a significant issue Printed: 14/02/2021 2 of 12 DTCN - A CONCEPT DESIGN FOR INDIAN RAILWAYS.DOCX KAPURTHALA that Ethernet Consist Network relies on use of to 1) Higher protocol efficiency, 2) Better bus proprietary and expensive TCN stack. The general arbitration, 3) Support for multicasting/broadcasting at import is that a number of significant changes are likely lower layers, 4) Low resource requirement for in the design and standards of field buses for TCN. communication processing 5) Higher data integrity. The team of researchers from East Japan Railway The paper, The Future of CAN / CANopen and the Company, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Corporations, in the Industrial Ethernet Challenge, Wilfried Voss, article titled Development of 100Mbps-Ethernet- President ESD Electronics, Inc USA, discusses the based Train Communication Network, discuss the possibility of Ethernet replacing CAN. It states that the 100Mbps Ethernet based TCN deployed under the different flavors of industrial Ethernet driven by development project named INTEROS. The paper also proprietary interests make adoption difficult. The gives an overview how the train to ground systems can paper predicts that CAN should remain the most cost interact for sharing vital and non-vital data. Results of sensitive field bus solutions for embedded systems. tests of noise immunity and cross talk on the Ethernet network are detailed. The developments for mitigating Study of application requirements such issues are discussed. The team has reported In order to arrive at a concept design of a TCN for successful test of the MUE train equipped with Ethernet Indian Railways, a review of equipment and as Train Bus. applications that require such a communication infrastructure was conducted. In their article titled T-Ethernet, Keiichi Kamata, Hideyuki Takahashi, Toshiba Corporation, Tokyo, The following applications categories were studied to Japan, discuss T-Ethernet as a candidate for TCN. The determine the nature of communication requirements. improvements made in T-Ethernet for railway use have This was done with the view to establish the criteria been discussed as: 1) Enabling high speed, 2) Real- for evaluation of communication technologies and also time control function 3) Redundant Control Function 4) lent to identification of issues that need to be Improving Noise Immunity. The proposed architecture is addressed at the application level. 3-tier as compared to 2-tier of IEC61375 TCN. A shared A broad division was made between control common Ethernet bus architecture is proposed at the requirements and infotainment systems requirements. data-link layer to share control information in real-time. Token passing methodology is used for bus-arbitration Control systems requirements in lieu of CSMA/CD. The paper also proposes use of Requirements of control communication are stringent minimalistic protocols in the TCP/IP suite i.e IP, ARP,