TREND - Test of Rolling Stock Electromagnetic Compatibility for cross-Domain interoperability
Overview
Background & policy context:
Currently rolling stock electromagnetic emissions is a major concern for train manufacturers and railway infrastructure operators [ERA EMC Report 2010]. Available harmonized EMC standards (EN50121-2, EN50121-3-1 and EN50121-3-2) do not completely address interoperability issues caused by rolling stock interferences with signalling systems (GSM-R, BTM, LTM and STM). Moreover, these standards do not cover representative worst-case conditions derived by transients in the rolling stock behaviour typically generated by feeding and track circuits' discontinuities.
On one hand this situation causes an important waste of time and resources for train manufacturers when integrating rolling stocks and signalling systems. And moreover in already tested trains, occasionally problems may still arise. Then, not only the responsibilities but also the technical solutions are not straight forward. The duration of the field testing employed to solve this kind of problems and to go through the certification process may vary between 3 months and 12 months. And the cost of the complete process may vary between 25k€ to 1,5M€ [ERA EMC Report 2010].
On the other hand, railway infrastructure operators suffer the railway infrastructure availability reduction caused by the rolling stock electromagnetic incompatibility with the safety critical signalling systems. The previously commented problems might cause an estimated reduction of 10% of the availability in the most crowded lines.
Objectives:
TREND project has the objective to progress beyond the state of the art, addressing this situation by means of the design of a test setup and a test procedure that enable the harmonisation of freight and passengers rolling stock approval tests for EMC, focusing not only on interferences with broadcasting services but also on railway signalling systems.
TREND will also identify and design the cross acceptance test sites on electrified and non-electrified lines that reproduce representative worst case conditions for steady state and transient behaviours. These worst case conditions will be obtained thanks to the electromagnetic modelisation of the rolling stock within the rail and feeding infrastructure.
The dissemination of the project outcomes is the last objective of the project. Thanks to this, the impact of TREND embraces the terms safety, availability and economy, and is addressed to the main stakeholders in the European railway industry: web page, 9 contributions to technical journals, 2 workshops for companies, 2 courses for professional advancement and students, the creation of an advisory board and of course concrete proposals for enhancing EMC standards and Technical Specification for interoperability.
The medium size TREND consortium is formed by CEIT (S); CAF (S); CEDEX (S); IFSTTAR (F), Y-EMC (UK), TV (S) and LTU (S), which guaranties a more efficient coordination. Such consortium presents unique features in terms of technical competence, representation of the complete value of chain, quality assurance and research orientation.
Methodology:
The thorough analysis comprises measurement, modelization and safety and availability analysis of the effect of rolling stock's EMIs on the neighbouring systems. The system potentially affected by these EMIs will be completely covered. These are classified in four research areas: spot signalling system (which includes BTM, LTM and STM), track circuit, GSM-R and broadcasting services (which include TV, radio, Freight RFID, WFI and GSM). This complete physical environment will permit a precise analysis of the EMI coupling model affecting the whole communication systems. Thanks to the safety and availability model of the communication systems, TREND will design a test procedure that recreates representative worst-case for the rolling stock electromagnetic emissions that could affect interoperability including transient phenomena.
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