A novel train-to-train communication model design based on multihop in high-speed railway

Abstract

Railway telematics applications are currently attracting attention and are under intense research. Reliable railway telematics applications increasingly tend to require a subsidiary means to help existent control system make train operation safer and more efficient. Since 2006, train-to-train communication has been studied to respond to such requirements. A key characteristic of train-to-train communication is that operation control to avoid possible accidents is conducted among trains without help of a base station. This paper proposes a novel train-to-train communication model in a physical layer based on multihop and cooperation, taking a high-speed railway propagation channel into account. The mechanism of this model lies in the idea that a source train uses trains on other tracks as relays to transmit signals to destination train on the same track. Based on occurrence of these potential relays, such mechanism can be divided into three cases. In each case, BER is applied to evaluate properties of the proposed communication model. Simulation results show that BER of the train-to-train communication model decreases to 10 - 6 when SNR is 10 dB and that the minimum receiving voltage of this model is -84 dBm, which is 8 dBm lower than the standards established by the International Union of Railways (UIC) in a high-speed railway scenario. © 2012 Pengyu Liu et al.