The Design of Critical Data Communication Applications for Railways: an Approach
Ivaylo Ivanov Atanasov, Vasil Vatakov, Evelina Nikolova Pencheva · 2023
The application of cutting-edge technologies for data communications is expected to improve the reliability, safety, and security of railways and to enable driverless automation and predictive trackside maintenance. Future railway mobile data communications will make use of Internet of Railways functionality to connect trains, engines, signaling equipment, point machines, level crossing, control centers, etc. Critical data communications in railways include key features as authentication and authorization, message integrity, robust connectivity, and prioritization. The paper presents a service-oriented approach to design critical data communication applications in railways. Common functionality may be synthesized as services and used as service bricks in the application design. The paper presents the application programming interfaces of reusable railway-specific services, the use of which is illustrated by use cases. The approach feasibility is proved by modeling the data communication state and by assessment of the injected latency.