IET Colloquium on Antennas, Wireless and Electromagnetics

27 May 2014, Ofcom, London, UK

Signal Propagation on a Railway

Wireless Condition Monitoring
System
Ahmadreza Faghih,
Costas Constantinou, Edward Stewart
School of Electronic, Electrical and Computer
Engineering, The University of Birmingham

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Railway Research Centre

University of Birmingham
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Motorail Logistics, owners of Long
Marston railway test track

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Introduction
Railway condition monitoring:
Wheel Profile Monitoring, Bogie Performance Detector, Tread
Condition Detectors, Hot Axle Bearing, Acoustic bearing Defect
Detectors and

Reduce running and maintenance costs by using a train-wide

wireless sensor network (WSN)
Need to characterise wireless channel reliability on moving
train, in different environments and geographic locations
Quantify reliability of railway-WSN

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Time-Varying Channel
Multipath channel with significant time variability due to

Relative movement of linkages and

changing surrounding environment train speeding past embankments,
trees, tunnels, station platforms, etc.

Because of train movement, vibration, travelling around bends

and proximity of scatterers in different environments, both
shadowing and multipath fading are highly variable
Receiver signal strength, BER , packet loss and data rate are
stochastic functions of time and sensor locations
Propagation time is much lower than frame transmission time in
target railway systems MAC protocol operation is efficient

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Channel Signal Statistics For WSN

A static train configuration in situated in an open area is
amenable to electromagnetic modelling of the radio channel
between nodes
Moving train through a variety of environments is too
complex to model, so we adopt a statistical signal description
approach
Emphasis of this preliminary study is slow channel path loss
variability using a 2.4GHz COTS transceiver pair
We present a simple statistical characterisation of the time
varying channel on a real train in a test track environment

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Data Acquisition Method I

Pair of wireless Transceivers: TRC104 2.4-2.52GHz , 128
channel with 2.16 dBi monopole antennas
Sample and digitise RSSI at a sampling rate of 104 samples/s
Transmitter operates in continuous mode
System calibration to convert RSSI to path loss done in
anechoic chamber
TRC104
2.4GHz
transceiver

TRC104
2.4GHz
transceiver

RSSI
Value

NI
DAQ

SPI

PIC
MCU

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Excel
File

Data Acquisition Method II

Test Route at Long Marston train test track
Divide route in different zones to evaluate channel for
straight track, bends, and/or objects beside track, open areas

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Nodes Location

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Nodes Location (cont.)

~ 10 m

Checked for free channel using spectrum analyser and set

channel: 2.520GHz Ptx = 2 dBm
Receiver kept in one location
Transmitter location moved as shown in config110

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Statistical Analysis of Results

First order statistics presented only
Construct histogram/PDF (Probability Density Function) and
CDF (Cumulative Distribution Function) for received power
and hence path loss
Evaluate the median path loss and IQR for each configuration
during train movement and stop conditions in various
sections of track as well as around entire circuit
The number of significant energy transport paths are related
to separation and nodes location

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First example of observed Prx PDF

0.1

Config3

Frequency

0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02

0
-95 -93 -91 -89 -87 -85 -83 -81 -79 -77 -75 -73 -71 -69 -67 -65 -63 -61 -59 -57 -55 -53 -51 -49 -47 -45 -43 -41
Prx (dBm)

Transmitter and receiver were installed on opposite sides of a

tanker wagon with NLOS, so bends do not have noticeable effect
on signal strength
Estimated that dominant paths go around as well as below wagon
Buildings and parked trains beside track have little influence on
spread of signal values
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Second example of observed Prx PDF

0.05

Config2

Probability

0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
-95 -93 -91 -89 -87 -85 -83 -81 -79 -77 -75 -73 -71 -69 -67 -65 -63 -61 -59 -57 -55 -53 -51 -49 -47 -45 -43 -41
Prx (dBm)

Transmitter installed on passenger wagon, receiver on tanker

wagon and on opposite sides of train
The bottom of passenger wagon was lower compared to tanker
wagons so the path(s) under the wagon are weaker
There was a big building beside track on the transmitter side for
part of this railway track
Bends have a marked effect on signal strength giving rise to two
peaks in PDF
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CDF for static train

dTx-Rx
(m)

M
(Loss)

IQR
(Loss)

10.5

79 dB

2.5 dB

Config2

56.2
dB

1 dB

Config3

4.75

55 dB

0.7 dB

Config1

Config4
Config5

11
19

70.3
dB
77 dB

Probability
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
Config4

0.8 dB

0.6

Config5

0.5

Config1

0.4

Config6

0.3

0.2

Config2

0.8 dB

0.1
0

Config6

11

73 dB

3.4 dB -100

-80

-60

-40

Prx dBm

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-20

CDF for moving train along whole track

Config1

Config2

Config3

Config4

Config5

Config6

Probability

dTx-Rx
(m)

M
(Loss)

IQR
(Loss)

10.5

84.2
dB

10.7
dB

70 dB

13.2
dB

Config4

7.5 dB

Config1

4
4.75
11

19
11

62.5
dB
77 dB

79.3
dB
78.5
dB

1
0.9
Config3

Config5

Config6

10.5
dB

Config2

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

8.9 dB
10.8
dB

0.8

0.1
0
-100

-80

-60

-40

Prx dBm

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-20

Future work
Next steps are to:

Calculate BER from SNR statistics

Calculate PER from packet length and error correcting code
Determine appropriate system thresholds (minimum acceptable PER
for sensing application)
Calculate WSN outage probabilities assuming transmit node power
control characteristics
Calculate signal transmission delay distributions

Compute second order statistics to establish fade durations

and level crossing rates
Translate to WSN outage duration statistics
Examine mitigation strategies and associated WSN protocols
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Summary

Preliminary measurement results on real trains presented

Limited first order statistics considered only in this work
Distance dependence is not a reliable indicator for path loss
Most paths are non-line of sight
Train movement results in 5-14 dB of increase in median path
loss
Train movement results in 7-13 dB increase in IQR of path loss
Scatterers in immediate vicinity to track (parked trains,
building, etc.) as well as bends in track have a strong effect on
path loss variation and often observed to give rise to multimodal path loss distributions

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References

A. Goldsmith (2005) Wireless Communication, Cambridge University

H. Chuan, M.S. Alouini (2011) Order Statistics in Wireless
Communication, Cambridge University
E. Biglieri, S. Benedetto (1999) Principle of Digital Transmission with
Wireless Application, Prentice-Hall
W. Stallings (2007) Data And Computer Communications, 7th Edition,
Prentice-Hall
N. Yaakob, I. Khalil and J. Hu (2010) Performance Analysis of Optimal
Packet Size for Congestion Control in Wireless Sensor Networks, IEEE
K. Doddapaneni, E. Ever (2012) Path Loss Effect on Energy Consumption
in a WSN, International Conference on Modelling and Simulation
T. Stoyanova, F. Kerasiotis (2009) A Practical RF Propagation Model for
Wireless Network Sensors, International conference on Sensor
Technologies and Applications

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