Generating an electronic track map for train collision early warning system

Abstract

The early warning for train-to-train collisions is of great significance to provide safety assurance for modern high speed railway. For the design of a satellite-based train collision early warning system, satellite navigation is involved to realize precise and reliable train locating with assistance from odometry and on-board inertial sensors. Due to the requirements of map assistance for one-dimensional track location results in the track coordinate, it is important to generate effective electronic track map for the TCEWS (Train Collision Early Warning System) equipments. According to system demands and operation scheme of TCEWS, the requirements and key issues for generating the electronic track map are analyzed in this paper. Based on the raw measurements of railway tracks, the methodologies of track curve reduction and track geometry determination are described with corresponding principles. Based on that, three indices are presented to analyze and evaluate the uncertainty from the map data processing. Results with practical track measurements and field tests in Wuhan-Yichang Railway are analyzed and discussed, which demonstrate the effectiveness and significance of the presented methods for TCEWS implementations.