Workstream 1 – Alternative bearers for railway applications
Objectives and activities of workstream 1
To identify, assess, analyse and describe alternative communication bearers (ABs) for the rail environment, from a technology perspective, in addition and beyond established radio technologies such as UMTS/HSPA, LTE, LTE-A, WiFi/802.11, geostationary satellites;
To study Optics (Visible Light Communication (VLC), Free Space Optics (FSO)), Power Line Communications (PLC), Internet of Things (IoT) (Short Range, i.e. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Zigbee, ultra-wideband), IoT (Long Range, i.e. Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) e.g. LoRa, NB-IoT), High Altitude Platform System (HAPS), Update technologies (Novel Sat LEO constellations), Future technologies (Quantum communications, THz communications) as alternative communication bearers suitable for the rail infrastructure and the equipment alongside the railway tracks;
To select the most promising alternative bearers technologies to be integrated into the ACS by providing a recommendation or classification of ABs related to certain railway environments in terms of technology and business case development;
To compare the expected communication characteristics of each AB with well-established wireless technologies of Traditional Bearers (TBs);
To use its emulators/simulators, laboratories and facilities for on field test to verify the performance.
