The idea of the digital railway got here into being with the primary operational implementation of GSM-R in 1999. The Worldwide Union of Railways (UIC) describe GSM-R as ‘the bearer for the primary Digital Railway Radio Communications System’. GSM-R is a second technology (2G) digital radio system primarily based on the industrial GSM cellular telephony system tailored to be used on railways. Corporations comparable to Motorola modified their very profitable 2G terrestrial cellular infrastructure merchandise to assist GSM-R. GSM-R has been massively profitable throughout Europe, being utilized in over 20 nations throughout 100,000km of tracks. The variety of fashionable railway communications techniques is predicted to extend within the subsequent few years as a result of ongoing installations internationally together with areas comparable to Algeria, Saudi Arabia, India, China and Australia.
GSM-R expertise is now over 20 years outdated, and distributors are actively planning to end-of-life assist for tools. That means that software program updates and {hardware} replacements will stop on the end-of-life date. The newest 5G applied sciences have been designed to assist versatile cellular broadband techniques, supporting each low bit price and really excessive bit price connections.
Enter, FRMCS – Future Railway Cell Communications System. Began in 2012 with the publication of a UIC known as the Consumer Requirement Specification (URS) to seize the person necessities for communications within the railway throughout the globe. FRMCS is way more than are placement for GSM-R, it represents a chance to revolutionise communications in a contemporary railway system.
On the time of writing, the latest URS is FU 7100-v5.0.0, revealed in Might 2020. These person necessities are translated into Useful Requirement Specification (FRS) and in flip the System Requirement Specification (SRS). The SRS is important to fulfill the European Directives with regard to interoperability throughout European railways. Secondly, the use instances will be introduced to ETSI and 3GPP for ‘hole evaluation’.
Though the UIC states that FRMCS must be expertise agnostic, it does not make sense to develop a brand new expertise when 3GPP have a collection of requirements targeted on Mission Essential Communications (MCX).
The FRMCS undertaking is nicely underway with a FRMCS demonstrator deliberate for 2023 and the primary nationwide trials starting in 2024. The advantages of FRMCS are very vital to a rail operator, nevertheless the timescales are very quick and there are a variety of challenges dealing with the profitable implementation of FRMCS.
FRMCS is one other space of Essential Nationwide Infrastructure by which Wray Fort are worldwide specialists. We’ve been serving to telecommunications professionals carry on the vanguard of ever altering expertise since 1958.
To study extra about FRMCS go to Wray Castle’s website.