Satellite Air Interface for Railway Control Communications

SAIRCC will evaluate and demonstrate the performance of a satellite system that can be used as an alternative solution to GSM-R system, with particular interest to ERTMS / ETCS (European Train Control System) on-board applications, while being compliant with safety integrity level equal to SIL4 and relying on NO-SIL high availability communication channels.

The aim of the activity will be to take requirements already defined in Iris4Rail ESA project and X2Rail- 1 project of Shift2Rail and to develop a satellite air interface capable of addressing needs. The performance of the resulting air interface will be validated through realistic packet-level simulations and develop and validate a prototype of the resulting air interface in a Software Defined Radio (SDR) platform.

The analysis will determine the performance of the radio system for use in signalling systems and assess the suitability of the solution for applications that require broadband a. To cover an entire railway route, where the satellite solution cannot guarantee adequate performance, technical solutions that allow interoperability with the ground systems (such as the 5G ground system) will be carefully evaluated in order to resolve any system coverage gaps.

Last updated date: 7 May 2024