Derivation of statistical properties for mass transit power supply networks as powerline communication channel

Abstract

To accomplish efficient automatic train operation and protection in mass transit, at every location within the railway continuous bidirectional communication between fixed wayside equipment and mobile onboard equipment is necessary. Due to their availability at any working condition power supply networks are a potential transmission medium to employ for communication. They are even ideal to provide the necessary reliability for safety critical data transmission. The present paper studies the statistical properties of this mobile time-variant communication channel. As measurements on real installations are impractically laborious and costly, we derive them from a physically motivated model of the communication channel. Utilizing the statistical properties we introduce a model useful for simulation, system design and system test.