Wireless Safe Data Transmission Protocol Links for Railway Applications

This work evaluates the impact of wireless communications on the safety performance of SDTv2, a certified protocol to be used for the communication of safety systems in trains The authors outline the communications existing in the next generation train communication network scenarios and select one of the safety functions in railway operations. The SDTv2 protocol is described, focusing on its evaluation for wireless safety scenarios. The authors compute the tolerable hazard rate according to the train inauguration function, considering various deployment scenarios across the entire significant Bit Error Rate (BER) range. Moreover, the authors analyze BER monitoring techniques designed to limit safety evaluations only to favorable scenarios. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using SDTv2 for certain deployment scenarios and the impact that monitoring tools have on slowly variant channels over time.