Develooment of a ZigBee aplications for a Railway detection system, ADIF's DCDP

Abstract

Telecommunication is a key element in the control of railway tra c, especially of high speed trains. High speed railway systems are equipped with sensors and detectors which deliver valuable information concerning the operation thus providing rail and passenger safety. ADIF has currently sensors installed at strategic points of the railway routes to monitor environmental, train and infrastructure conditions. These detection systems consist of outdoor sensors installed directly on the track and/or catenary and processing units, which are located in wayside shelters or racks. Local operation sites concentrate the nearby received information for further transmission throughout ADIF's communication network to control centres. The communication link between sensors and processing unit is always wired, which implies high installation and maintenance costs. This project proposes the substitution of the wired communication link between sensors and processing unit with a wireless link using ZigBee technology. For that reason an orientation study is carried out to identify potential railway detection systems for substituting the wired communication links with a wireless ZigBee interface. Based on this initial study a ZigBee mesh architecture is proposed, allowing easy network scalability and path redundancy. An application prototype is designed and developed based on the speci c needs of the DCDP (Pantograph's Dynamic Behaviour Detection) system. For this purpose a speci c application pro le was considered, designing and implementing the particular clusters needed to meet the DCDP requirements. Tests results successfully prove the feasibility to use ZigBee technology for the replacement of the DCDP wired links, opening the possibility to further develop the DCDP applications and implement the solution for other detection systems. Moreover safety studies must be carried out to meet railway safety standards and ADIF's safety requirements.