Rail
Driving innovation in the rail industry
CIE spoke exclusively to Tony Milne, business development manager at Advantech about the latest innovations for the rail industry, why co-creation is vital and how to stay on track post pandemic
What is the most important aspect of designing products for rail applications?
Advantech has been working for rail customers for many years, and a lot of our general purpose products are used in a variety of applications connected with the rail industry. For example, rail signalling uses many industrial computers, a product first developed by Advantech thirty years ago, and which are still installed worldwide. These computers are exactly the same as those installed in factories, power stations and mines.
However, there are many special applications which exist only for rail which require unique features or specifications. In a train station, for example, all the passenger ticketing systems use computers. Those in ticket vending machines could use fanless embedded computers, but Advantech has also developed a range of these computers specifically for public transport ticket vending, as the requirements are quite different from drinks vending. For passenger control, the most specialised products are those for intelligent barriers. The key requirement here is to minimise the thickness of the barrier, and therefore of
16 June 2020
the components inside the barrier. Smart barriers need a high-speed computer to quickly check the passengers’ smart card or ticket validity, and as well as narrow profile they usually also require all the connectors on one side.
Computers installed outside the train station, next to the tracks, have less need for small size or connection placement. However, installations next to the metal tracks or overhead or third-track power systems, need protection from the very high currents used to drive trains as well as from the lightning strikes that are a common problem. This danger is codified into protection standards such as EN-50121, which lists all the different electro-magnetic threats and the test standards that Advantech products have to meet before they can be offered to the rail trackside market.
The toughest environmental and functional conditions appear in on-board train applications. In the passenger spaces, Advantech products need to survive the wear and tear of thousands of passengers a day, including vandalism, spilt coffee and worse, rapidly-changing temperatures, and the very great danger of fire, which has its
Components in Electronics
own standard, EN-45545. Most Advantech products on trains, however, are usually installed in roof spaces or control cabinets, or in the driver’s compartments. In these places, temperatures can reach much higher temperatures, which passengers could not survive. An operating computer produces its own heat, and several computers performing different functions can operate inside the same cabinet. The most extreme conditions include temperatures up to 85°C, and equipment has to survive the vibration and shock of a high-speed train journey at these extreme temperatures. The standard for rolling stock use is EN-50155. Such are the demands on rolling stock product that it is impossible to take a consumer or datacentre computer, or even an industrial computer, and just add on the features to meet these standards. Advantech starts with a new design, and looks for individual components such as the power supply, the CPU, the chassis, the connectors and all the individual components that can together meet and surpass the standard. Especially for the temperature standards, considerable work is done in thermal management to ensure that the computer can operate reliably for its lifetime.
What products specifically have you designed and brought to market that can be used in the rail environment and what are you working on now? Advantech’s core business is computing, and we have a wide range of computers used in train stations, trackside and on rolling stock. I’ve mentioned ticketing and signalling applications, but Advantech is also heavily involved in passenger information and entertainment systems, such as WiFi/Internet on-board and content delivery.
In addition to computers, Advantech uses its expertise in industrial electronics to provide communications devices – switches, routers, gateways – for rail applications. Driver and passenger displays are the most visible reference of our technology.
Do you have any projects that have improved passenger safety, can you elaborate on them?
Rail transport is by far the safest method of commuting, and recent advances have made it even safer, while significantly increasing the usage of public transport. Advantech is just one supplier contributing to this, providing the computing elements necessary to analyse camera and sensor data and provide guidance
www.cieonline.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46
