Mitigation Techniques to Reduce the Vulnerability of Railway Signaling to Radiated Intentional EMI Emitted From a Train

This paper evaluates several techniques capable of mitigating the impact of low-power radio frequency jammers that interfere with ground-to-train communications. These radio communications are used for railway signaling, and interfering with these signals can have a negative impact on the train operation. Although the commercialization, detention, and use of radiofrequency jammers is strictly forbidden in most countries, they can be easily found on the internet at low cost and unexpectedly switched on by a passenger in a moving train. In this paper, we evaluate and compare the ground-to-train radio communication and intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) received signal powers delivered by roof train antennas to the train control command receiver. This comparison is used to deduce the potential zones of interference along the train trajectory and its consequences. Operating at the physical layer, we then propose and evaluate three mitigations techniques that can be used separately or combined to reduce the impact of this type of interference. We show that they can significantly reduce the jamming capability and help us in maintaining railway full operation.