Design aspects and performance evaluation of ATCS mobile data link

A mobile data link system for the North American Advanced Train Control System (ATCS) is proposed and analyzed with respect to the ATCS preliminary requirements. Design aspects of mobile data radios are discussed to point out the hardware limitations due to regulations and technologies. The propagation characterization of the channel is investigated. (1) The RF field strength coverage of a base station predicted for urban, suburban, quasi-open, and open environments, is given. (2) Multipath fading models are given. The probabilities of success for a single try as a function of received signal levels are presented for different train speeds. (3) System bit error rates (BERs) for different cases are shown. The use of Reed-Solomon codes for forward error correction is also included to show the improvement of the system performance.<
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