Wireless Communication in China Train Maintenance Station

Overview

Following their arrival at maintenance facilities to pursue systematic and intensive examination, trains start transferring collected operational data to the administration headquarters for further analysis. Here, developing a non-stop and bandwidth efficient communication system for ensuring large data rate transfers between the train carriages and control room is important. 

In China, for automation of a train maintenance station, a Rail System Integrating Company chose to install a complete set of wired and wireless Ethernet networking solutions from Korenix.

In each train a single entry level JetNet 2005 unmanaged switch and JetWave 2450 Wireless Access Point has been installed to communicate the on-board data with the JetWave 2450 APs installed at several base stations spread around the maintenance facility.
The switch helped to collect the diagnostic information from computers to send them to the JetWave 2450 wireless APs through the supported Ethernet port, which in its turn benefitted from the 802.11n Wireless N band to transfer higher rate of data (up to 150Mbps) from on-board vehicles to base stations. With WEP, WAP, WAP2 and MAC address filtering, users were able to achieve highest security of the streamed wireless data.

To forward all the info to the supervising control center of the maintenance station, the JetNet 5010G gigabit switches were further used, which collected data from several base station JetWave 2450 wireless APs through available Fast Ethernet ports. Using the Gigabit SFP combo ports and the MSR network redundancy technology, the switches then formed a fiber ring, which helped reliably extending data. System integrator chose to use Korenix MSR as it provided simple network architecture and a very fast recovery time (less than 5milliseconds), thus ensuring the real-time data transfer without any information loss.

Through the Korenix rackmount switches (JetNet 5628G), all the data was collected in the control center. The JetNet 5628G, which has passed the NEMA TS-2 certification for traffic control and EN 50121-4 EMC for Railway Trackside deployments has been selected for its heavy industrial resistant design for control room installations. With the LLDP and JetView Pro of the switches allowed automatically discovering devices, checking their statuses and remotely managing them. Users achieved the high quality and security of the streamed data due to the supported outstanding management functions of both rack and DIN-rail switches, which assured a more optimized data transfer with higher performance.

Last but not least, to resist the harsh weather conditions in the outdoor areas of the maintenance facility, the rugged design of JetWave 2450 and JetNet 5010G further helped: using the -20~70^oC wide operating temperature range and waterproof /dustproof design of the Wireless APs as well as the IEC 61000-6-4 heavy industry certified design of the switches with electromagnetic susceptibility, vibration/shock resistance and -25~70^oC range, the devices performed highly stable operation in field sites.

By using Korenix complete solution, the Railway System Integrator was capable to reliably collect high-performance and high-bandwidth data on-board vehicles and ensure system stability.