The Influence of Pantograph Arcing Radiation Disturbance on LTE-R

Long Term Evolution (LTE) has the characteristics of high speed, low delay, high mobility and high security. The International Railway Union (UIC) has confirmed LTE as the next generation of railway wireless communication technology, while the 400 MHz frequency band is currently available as a band resource in China. However, considering that the disturbance generated by pantograph arcing is strong in low frequency band, it is necessary to study the disturbance of LTE-R system under the pantograph arcing radiation disturbance. In this paper, the radiation characteristics of the pantograph arcing are studied by theoretical numerical simulation of electromagnetic field. Meanwhile, the antenna-coupling model at the roof of the train is established for analyzing the disturbance received by LTE-R antenna, which is based on electromagnetic computation software. Furthermore, the TD-LTE downlink simulation model is established via analyzing the basic principles of the LTE physical layer downlink including Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ). The influence of pantograph arcing on the Block Error Rate (BLER) and throughput of LTE-R system is analyzed by using the simulation model of TD-LTE downlink, and the conclusion proves that the simulation results are consistent with the theoretical analysis. It can be concluded that the TD-LTE system will be interfered by pantograph arcing in 400 MHz frequency band, leading to throughput degradation.