Railway Transportation Italy

Project Introduction: Rete Ferroviaria Italiana is in charge of managing the entire railway infrastructure in Italy. Recently they were concerned with improving circulation control in the face of growing traffic without affecting trip duration. Their target could be reached by creating a completely automated infrastructure to handle traffic in the stations in case of problems with communication in the remote central control room. Without an automated system, train routes must be handled manually, which is very time-consuming.

System Requirements:

Rete Ferroviaria Italiana wanted to introduce intelligent devices able to help remotely manage railway traffic. In case of lack of communications, the system needed to be able to analyze the input signals and re-route the trains in safe manner. The devices needed to be rugged and reliable, offering versatile functions for their unique application.

Project Implementation:

ADAM-5510EKW/TP	8-slot SoftLogic Controller with Ethernet
ADAM-5055S	16-ch Isolated Digital I/O Module with LED

System Diagram:

System Description:
Advantech’s ADAM-5510EKW/TP PAC is placed in every railway station, and along the railway route there are 40 ADAM-5510EKW/TPs located at different stations. The PAC is able to acquire all the input signals from the ADAM modules and automatically re-route trains according to pre-defined programming parameters. The system is connected to another room completely independent from the main backbone communication system in order to ensure remote supervision in case of a communication problem. The system is composed of SCADA software in order to control, monitor and drive all the PACs. The SCADA Software at the central station acquires field data from the ADAM devices. ADAM-5510EKW/TP is equipped with an ADAM-5055S DI/DO module. The device has been chosen for its form factor that has good computation power allowing high expansion possibility. Advantech system integrator Erreuno integrated SCADA software with to customize the solution.

Conclusion:
After implementing the new system, RFI was able to realize high voltage isolation on the power supply and serial inputs, with Ethernet connection to the main structure and can now use Modbus TCP/RTU compliancy to ensure reliable communications. Advantech’s rugged products were able to provide powerful hardware to ensure local real time DI/DO control capability of stand alone control with possible future local expansion through the ADAM-5000 series. Moreover they achieved a flexible and powerful integrated development suite with KW Multiprog.