How to Make Rail Transit Drive to Intelligent Age

In recent years, with the rise of the concept of the Internet of Things, as the peripheral nerve of the Internet of Things, sensors have attracted more and more attention in the industry. The rail transit industry, which requires more and more automation, networking and intellectualization, is naturally no exception. The sensor is the advanced rail transit represented by high-speed rail, which is the first gate to the intelligent era.

How to Make Rail Transit Drive to Intelligent Age

The requirement of sensor technology for intelligent rail transit in China is getting higher and higher

On April 28, 2016, in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, at the Engineering Frontier Technology Forum co-sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Engineering and China National Automobile Corporation, academicians of the National Academy of Engineering and young and middle-aged experts from China jointly discussed the topic of "Application of Intelligent Sensing Technology in Rail Transit".

Six Applications of Sensing Technology in Rail Transit

The experts at the meeting defined the sensor as a kind of detection device, which can sense the measured information, and transform the sensed information into electrical signals or other required forms of information output according to certain rules to meet the requirements of information transmission, processing, storage, display, recording and control.

Partial Sensors in Equipment Room of High-speed Railway Train

At the meeting, Ding Rongjun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, described six major application scenarios of sensor technology in the field of rail transit: first, collecting information on train operation; second, integrated high-speed comprehensive detection of trains; third, comprehensive performance testing of trains; fourth, rail flaw detection; fifth, remote monitoring of track status; and sixth, integrated indoor and outdoor environmental sensing.

Sensors for Rail Transit

For example, taking Harmony 380AL as an example, a self-developed high-speed railway train representative in China, the number of sensors in a train is more than 1000, with an average of one sensor in every 40 parts. They are responsible for state monitoring, fault alarm, vehicle equipment control and other functions. It's just an on-board sensor system.

Accelerometers for rail transit are not yet domestically manufactured. Intelligent research and development of trains in China is on the way.

At present, the sensor industry in China has gradually moved from imitation and introduction to independent design and innovation. However, it has been revealed that in terms of rail transit sensor market alone, the acceleration sensors with relatively high technology content have not yet been localized. In fact, not only the rail transit industry, the domestic sensor industry is still generally at the low-end level, the real sense of localized substitution has just begun.

In fact, the engineering research and development of intelligent trains in China is on the way. The following are two typical R&D cases in recent years:

In June 2013, China Zhongcha developed the first intelligent high-speed train prototype in China. For the first time, it has realized the engineering application of new Internet of Things technology and sensor network technology in large-scale transportation equipment and multi-network integration of Internet of Things, sensor network, train control network and vehicular transmission network. It has preliminary self-detection, self-diagnosis and self-decision ability.

In March of this year, at the debugging site of an EMU in Beijing, the debugging train can be fully automated and driverless.

In 2015, China's Zhongcha first launched its own fully automated "driverless" Metro train. The train can recognize obstacles, roads and traffic signals autonomously through the perception system, which is the key to replace the driver by the machine.

Safety is still the primary requirement of intelligent rail transit in the future

Experts at the meeting believed that in the future, sensors and artificial intelligence technology will be deeply integrated in the field of rail transit, but the core value of rail transit informatization has not changed. It is still safe, reliable, efficient, convenient and economic. Although the probability of accidental collision of trains running on fixed tracks is much smaller than that of automobiles and UAVs, once such collision occurs, the loss is incalculable.

Safety is still the first requirement of rail transit technology development

Qian Qingquan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that safety is still the first requirement for rail transit. He said that in the past, our control of trains mainly relied on signal lights, which is relatively primitive. With the development and deployment of the new generation of train control system, the situation has greatly improved. It is believed that with the further development and application of intelligent sensing technology, trains will become smarter and safer at the same time.