Adaptable Communication System (ACS) for Flexible Communications in the Transport Sector: the AB4Rail project experience

The introduction of GSM-R as a mandatory radio communication system for operational voice and ERTMS/ETCS data communication between rail infrastructure and the train onboard systems has provided a stable pillar for the single European railway area, based on a single radio technology and a single radio spectrum band. In recent years, it has however become clear that placing sole reliance on a single radio technology that is shortly becoming obsolescent is not a viable approach going forward. A more flexible approach is needed for the future based on multi communication technologies. The paper summarizes the characteristics of the adaptable communication system (ACS) technology developed in the railway context as a baseline for the spread of future railway communication system. We outline the application of ACS to other transport sectors such as the automotive one, allowing to introduce a novel and flexible vision of V2X communications based on the abstraction of the underlying communication technologies and on the creation of an overlay mesh-based adaptable communication platform above which applications can negotiate QoS parameters and exchange data without worrying of connectivity aspects including setup/maintenance and drop of connections. Finally, the possibility for ACS to create heterogeneous access network is also discussed.