Interoperable Train Control Application

Our railway Customer, a major player in the field of railway signaling and integrated transport systems, needed to incorporate a new Interoperable Train Control (ITC) application communication system into the existing infrastructure. The Customer’s new system required adaptations for multiple specific platforms to ensure smooth interoperability, implementation of improved security protocols, and capability for remote  software updates.

The key objectives of the project were: to improve safety for the railroad transportation industry, to provide a unified mechanism for asset communications and management, and to comply with AAR regulations.

The main goal of the Interoperable Train Control System Management project was to perform porting and adaptation of the third-party ITC Management System to the MLK WIU board and provide system support. The Interoperable Train Control System itself was designed as a middleware layer with a primary function that would allow applications in the Railroad back offices, locomotives and waysides to communicate with each other in an interoperable fashion across railroad boundaries. This messaging system hides the complexities involved in the interoperable communication between remote (locomotives and waysides) and office areas so that applications can communicate freely without concern over how their messages are routed through the system.

PSA engineers began the project with a review of the existing source code and requirements analysis. After the initial review, they moved on to the next phase: adaptation to the specific resource-limited platform. Finally, they performed customization and optimization of ucLinux for NIOS II CPU, including memory allocation and usage optimization, reduction of simultaneous execution threads, and the creation of a lightweight package manager.

PSA developed a security infrastructure to distribute sensitive data (based on Open SSL). We also provided enabling of interoperability, including direct and scheduled remote SOTA and FOTA updates.  

We enforced access control, along with problem diagnostic support that generates and distributes notifications and logs by messages and SNMP traps. 

• Documentation review.
• Prototyping stage.
• Requirement investigation.
• Architecture review and adaptation, description of changes preparation.
• Porting and base components implementation.
• Test cases definition and preparation.
• Functional testing.