Ethernet in Intelligent Transportation System Applications

 

In an attempt to decrease congestion on the roads and save lives, Departments of Transportation  are exploring  solutions that make highways  ‘intelligent” By using intelligent transportation Systems. This way Departments of Transportation are able to monitor and react to traffic-flow issues, speed up the with the public of traffic issues, In addition expedite traffic by using automated toll collectors. To that end Networked applications are critical to the success of intelligent transportation Systems solutions and they require the ability to handle many types of data and performance. Ethernet is a cost-effective, high-bandwidth, intelligent technology that gets the most out of the ITS network infrastructure. Performance requirements of intelligent transportation system (ITS) networks are increasing dramatically. And we are seeing more and more new ITS projects using video monitoring, which in-turn increases bandwidth demands from thousands to tens of millions of bits per second. Mission-critical data coexists on the same network as lower-priority monitoring data, creating the need for bandwidth optimization.

Wordsworth Technology offers the following range of networking products ;

• Industrial Ethernet switches
• PoE switches
• Industrial wireless access points
• Industrial VPN router
• Industrial device servers
• Industrial media converters

POE Switch Technology

PoE technology , 'a system to pass electrical power safely, along with data, on Ethernet cabling. The IEEE standard for PoE requires category 5 cable or higher for high power levels, but can operate with category 3 cable for low power levels. Power is supplied in common mode over two or more of the differential pairs of wires found in the Ethernet cables and comes from a power supply within a PoE-enabled networking device such as an Ethernet switch or can be injected into a cable run with a midspan power supply.'   Wikipedia 2011

Did you know that Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches can drastically reduce installation costs of network devices?  by providing data and power over the same piece of cable. Up to 15.4W @ 48Vdc can be delivered over Cat 5 / Cat 6 cabling to power devices such as IP cameras, wireless Access Points, IP telephones or any other device that supports the 802. PoE can be used at the end of a powered Ethernet connection to break out the power and data connections. This means that non-PoE compliant devices can also be installed with only a single cable being run to them. Splitters also provide a selectable voltage output ranging from 5 to 24Vdc.   ORing Industrial Networking products from Wordsworth Technology are used in a wide variety of applications and environments and comply fully with safety & EMC certification. Other certification includes IPv6, UL508, EN50155, C1D2 harsh certification and environmental directives

Trackside Networking Applications

Many rail systems such as IP CCTV, signalling, power distribution and general data transfer use a high reliability redundant LAN topology based on an Ethernet backbone. Fibre-optic cabling is typically used as the physical media thanks to its electrical noise immunity and transmission distances up to 100km in a single span.

To build such a LAN, Industrial Ethernet switches must be installed at regular intervals into trackside enclosures, buildings and substations and fibre-optic cables spliced and terminated at each location.

Wordsworth represent one of the world's most respected Industrial Ethernet switch manufacturers – O-ring a partnership that gives us over countless product permutations and a very high calibre portfolio of products that have been tried and tested on railways around the world.

Our vendor neutral position and team of networking experts allows us to offer the best solution at the best price with the approvals and credibility required for major trackside installations. Whether we employ the uniquely flexible 'O-Chain' revolutionary network redundancy technology from O-ring or ORing's proprietary redundant ring technology, with recovery time of less than 10 milliseconds often used in IP CCTV systems, our experts will provide an ideal solution for your trackside data distribution system.

In some systems, it may be necessary to communicate beyond the trackside LAN infrastructure, perhaps to the train itself or to a remote LAN using the 3G cellular networks:

Train to Trackside
There are several methods of maintaining communications between a moving train and a stationary trackside environment. One of them is to use the wired LAN backbone on the trackside to build a continuous Wireless LAN using Industrial wireless Access Points with rail approval.

Trackside to WAN
The default gateway from the trackside LAN will usually be at a central control room or similar where a WAN link will provide access to remote LANs or the internet as required. In some instances a standalone route out of the network may be required through a cellular router using the 3G phone network. This may be as a backup or as part of an independent trackside system. VLANs can be used to secure the content of the communications and a secondary SIM card can be used to connect to an alternative network (eg. Vodafone) if the primary network is down or the cell is saturated.

Rolling Stock Companies Improve Rail Travel for Customers

Rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) own the actual trains that run on the rails. It is their job to work with the train operating and freight companies to determine the sorts of engines, carriage and trucks required to deliver the desired customer services. Developments in technology have provided Rolling Stock Companies (ROSCOs) with the opportunity to improve the customer experience on modern trains. Seat-back advertising / entertainment and Mobile broadband provision are just two of the ideas that have emerged to improve the passenger environment and generate revenue for Train Operating Companies (TOCs). Wordsworth has involvement in several areas of rolling stock automation, some of which are highlighted below:

Network enabling rolling stock.

 With most systems converging on an Ethernet and TCP/IP based infrastructure it is essential to provide an Ethernet LAN on new and existing carriages. The Industrial Ethernet switches required to facilitate a reliable network must be ruggedized and meet associated rail standards such as EN50155 and EN50121-4. Wordsworth can supply switches suited for use onboard trains and can provide many case studies highlighting previous successful installations in different parts of the world. Our technical team can help with complex fault-tolerant architectures, EMC considerations, training and commissioning support.

Mobile Broadband
With the advent of high speed internet access over the 3G mobile phone networks comes a great opportunity for TOCs (Train Operating Companies) to provide internet connectivity to otherwise unoccupied commuters. This allows rail travel to be sold as a mobile office experience and becomes a favourable alternative to travelling by road.

Provision of Mobile Broadband requires a cellular router with an external antenna communicating with 3G base-stations and an internal antenna providing Wi-Fi coverage. Two-piece solutions comprising a cellular router and a separate rail-approved Wi-Fi Access Point are sometimes used to give greater flexibility over the choice of hardware used.

Maintenance systems
Wordsworth regularly supply data acquisition devices such as data acquisition boards and Ethernet data acquisition modules along with Industrial computers for track geometry and ultrasound systems. Most of these systems are retrofitted to rolling stock hence need to be rugged, vibration-proof and meet stringent EMC requirements. Wordsworth's TANK-101 computer has proved to be particularly popular for this type of application.

Why use choose Ochain Technology?

Many Ethernet protocols defined by IEEE, such as STP, RSTP, MSTP, are developed to recover from network disconnections. However, the recovery time is much more critical in industrial applications than commercial ones. Due to these needs, industrial networking devices often utilize proprietary redundant ring technologies to minimize the downtime. ORing develops a variety of proprietary redundant ring technologies including O-Ring, O-RSTP, and Open-Ring, etc. These ORing’s proprietary redundant ring technologies not only meet the demands of different networking topologies, but also assure the reliability of the network.

O-Ring is ORing's proprietary redundant ring technology, with recovery time of less than 10 milliseconds and up to 250 nodes. The O-Ring redundant ring technology can protect mission critical applications from network interruptions or temporary malfunction with its fast recover technology

Ethernet Solutions for Intelligent Transport Systems

The fast progression of Ethernet and TCP / IP has affected all areas of intelligent transport systems, especially in the field of barrier systems and ticket sales. Many distributed systems are connected via a serial interface such as RS232 and RS485. To ensure full integration of these systems in an IP backbone, there are a series of Ethernet converters, ethernet switches. These devices enable innovative equipment with legacy serial interfaces to be added to an IP network that allows them to communicate through a LAN, WAN or Internet! Other models in the range commonly used to connect the access control panels and fire at a LAN site save the cost of regular maintenance visits by a technician with a laptop.

 

The new ticket barrier that is often networked directly to the Ethernet Converter Ethernet series are vacuum complaint. System builders and OEMs often require high reliability industrial Ethernet switch is part of their products in combination with the devices inside the machine and provides a connection to the network machines. IES-1050A is the ideal affordable railway agreed to change cable connections, optional fiber optic cable. ICS-4040 Embedded Industrial Ethernet switch with a temperature range of a large number of fault-tolerant Ethernet technologies. This gives the advantage of a systems integrator of redundancy built in communications between nodes - easily achieved by separating more than competitive solutions.

 

Distributed Ticketing / prevention systems often require the processing power of 2 seats. First, the relatively low-power processor card is in each machine and, secondly, a better performance (Core 2 Duo or newer), or you need a rackmount embedded computer to provide end-to manage all network devices . Wordsworth may be a service sector, which represents all on-board computer systems such as PC/104 system based on Xeon Quad-Core server. Technical sales team is ready to help all the IT or network elements ticket / barrier systems

 

Distance module E / S are also a valuable part of any OEM or system integrator level. These units can transmit analog or digital data (such as contact closure, PIR door, proximity sensors and temperature sensors) and distribute information through an optical fiber or copper-based Ethernet LAN.

Networking Range provided by Wordsworth

Ethernet Switch available from Wordsworths, IPS-3082GC is a managed Redundant Ring Ethernet switch with 8x10/100TX ports with PoE (P.S.E) function & 2x1000 combo ports. With completely support of Ethernet Redundancy protocol, O-Ring (recovery time < 10ms over 250 units of connection), Open-Ring, O-RSTP and MSTP/RSTP/STP (IEEE 802.1s/w/D) can protect mission critical applications from network interruptions or temporary malfunctions with its fast recovery technology. This is a Managed Ethernet switch at its best.

IPS-3082GC also support Power over Ethernet, a system to transmit electrical power, along with data, to remote devices over standard twisted-pair cable in an Ethernet network. Each IPS-3082GC switch has 8X10/100TX P.S.E (Power Sourcing Equipment) ports. P.S.E is a device (switch or hub for instance) that will provide power in a PoE setup. IPS-3082GC support new DDM (Digital Diagnostic Monitoring) function, which can monitor instantly the status of electronic voltage, current and temperature.

All function of IPS-3082GC can be managed centralized and convenient by a powerful windows utility — Open-Vision. In addition, the wide operating temperature range from -40 to 75°C can satisfy most of operating environment. Therefore, the POE switch is one of the most reliable choice for highly-managed and Fiber Ethernet application with PoE function.

Other features include:

•	World’s fastest Redundant Ethernet Ring : O-Ring (recovery time < 10ms over 250 units of connection)
•	Open-Ring support the other vendor’s ring technology in open architecture
•	O-RSTP support applications with complex topology
•	8 ports P.S.E fully compliant with IEEE802.3af standard, provide up to 15.4 Watts per port

Wordsworth introduce Ethenet products that have assisted a water treatment works in South China area to establish its automation network.

Access to clean water through secure water treatment plants is vital to the welfare of any society. As populations grow and water plant technologies and complexities increase, water plant managers are increasingly turning to Ethernet to manage the plant facilities. Ethernet has become a key technology for new and updated supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Ethernet and IP protocols are the ideal basis from which to build or expand a secure network due to bandwidth and ubiquity. Heavy-duty networks designed to provide both physical and cyber security will provide the best industry solution as water treatment plants continue to evolve.

ORing offers a wide range of Ethernet solution for harsh industrial environments, related line offers Ethernet switches, media converters, device servers and AP routers covering 10/100/1000Base-T(X) connection speed, fiber, copper and wireless ports. The followings are two major applications:

In early 2010, ORing Industrial Networking Corp. (ORing or the Company) assisted a water treatment works in South China area to establish its automation network. This water treatment works provides a treated water supply to eastern part of the island with output of 227,000 m3 per day. The maximum pumping capacity is 285,000 m3 per day consist of 5 pumps located in the pumping station. The entire treatment works makes optimum use of the limited land available; incorporating specially designed landscaping features to blend with the natural environment. In order to enhance operation efficiency, a sophisticated “Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system is provided for automatic plant operation, monitoring and control.

Consisted of ORing’s IES-2042PA, IES-3082GP and IES-3242GC industrial Ethernet switches, the hybrid network of fiber and Ethernet solve the long transmission distance problem due to large area of the plant floor. In addition, wide operating temperature range (-40° - +70°) enables the devices to operate efficiently, and ORing’s patent redundancy technologies O-Ring (recovery time < 10ms over 250 units of connection) and Open-Ring can protect the water treatment’s mission-critical applications from network interruptions or temporary malfunctions with its fast recovery technology. Hence ORing’s switch products offer an ideal solution to achieve the real-time requirement communication task of the network system. 

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Please note we have moved and our new address is:

Steatite Ltd.

Ravensbank Business Park

Acanthus Road

Redditch

Worcs

B98 9EX

Interesting case stories from Steatite regarding the Oring networking range System in Russia

ORing's Industrial Networking Devices Strengthens the DVR Surveillance

In early 2009, one of ORing’s European distributors assists a system integrator to construct the DVR surveillance system in a 42-level high skyscraper in Russia. The Gigabit backbone network, a Gigabit redundant ring to communicate the central control room, video server and the other Ethernet switches in each level, is constituted by ORing’s high performance industrial full Gigabit Ethernet switches, IGS-3044GP and IGS-1050A.

Depended on the distance from the level at issue to the central control room, IES-3062GT and IES-1062GT is installed to connect to the IP cameras and link to the Gigabit backbone network or deployed to enable optic fiber connections to the cameras and the Gigabit backbone network. 

Furthemore, in order to offer seamless and efficient communication capabilities, ORing’s industrial wireless access point, IAP-6002-WA is installed to connect to the sensors located in somewhere difficult to deploy a wired cable inside the skyscraper.

In this successful case, ORing provides a total solution, including industrial full Gigabit Ethernet switches, industrial Ethernet switch with optic fiber connections, and industrial wireless access point, to assist its partner to establish a cost effective and high performance IP surveillance system of a skyscraper successfully.

For more information on the Oring networking range visit ; Wordsworth website

IEI Launches 3.5” Single Board Computer with Intel® Atom™ processor D425/N455/D525 and open frame heat spreader

IEI Technology (IEI), the global industrial PC innovator, released the 3.5” Single Board Computer (SBC) WAFER-PV-D4252/N4552/D5252. Following the release of WAFER-PV-D4251/N4551/D521, the WAFER-PV-D4252/N4552/D5252 is a 3.5" SBC with Intel® Atom™ D4252/N4552/D525 processor with open frame heat spreader. It supports 800 MHz DDR3 memory and an increased processor speed of 1.8 GHz . The WAFER-PV-D4252/N4552/D5252 delivers efficient performance in a wide range of applications. Key features include open frame heatsink thermal design for fanless environment and dual gigabit LAN. ASF 2.0 and UEFI BIOS architecture support over 2.2 TB of HDD storage on a 64-bit operating system.

The WAFER-PV-D4252/N4552/D5252 has a 3.5” form factor with Intel® Atom™ D425/N455/D525 processor. It features open frame heatsink thermal design for fanless solution. In addition, the AT/ATX power function allows for a 12V only single voltage option. Dual-display support is provided through a VGA port and 18-bit single channel LVDS interface. The WAFER-PV-D4252/N4552/D5252 comes complete with several I/O options including eight USB ports, two SATA 3Gb/s ports, one CF Type II port, six COM ports and one audio port.

All IEI dual-core Intel® Atom™ D525 SBCs include IEI's unique One Key Recovery software solution. One Key Recovery eliminates the frustration of system recovery after unexpected system failure by allowing users to easily create full system backup on demand and system restoration to a previously made backup with just a single click.