Abstract

Due to the rising awareness of environmental friendliness, more and more people are taking metro transportations such as subway and mass rapid transit as their primary commuting option. As people are spending more time on trains, and, with the popularity of smart mobile devices, they would like to maximize their time efficiency during their traveling time. Therefore, managements of rolling stock organizations are taking onboard Wi-Fi service into consideration. Regarding signal reliability and rolling stock environment, the most convenient solution is to implement an onboard gateway with wireless network connectivity and processing capability rather than installing a local Wi-Fi network or a satellite-based system. The onboard gateway will act as the Wi-Fi hot spot, so that passengers will have the access while spending time in the trains.

Technological Requirements

Due to the saturation of smart mobile devices, passengers would like to have free Wi-Fi access during their commuting time. To prevail in the market competition, operators of rolling stock systems are demanding reliable and efficient Wi-Fi hot spot service gateway to provide passengers the free wireless network access for their entertainment or business purposes. However, it is not practical to implement a local Wi-Fi network nor a satellite-based hub in a travelling train. Reliability could be a serious concern. Therefore, a rolling stock system integrator in Europe came to Lanner for an onboard gateway solution as a practical way to provide the Wi-Fi service.

The onboard gateway must integrate the following functionalities in order to fulfill the technological requirements.

Network Connectivity

This is the primary requirement. The onboard gateway must provide wireless network connectivity and Ethernet connections to wireless access points with PoE (Power over Ethernet) to fulfill quality of service.

High-performance Processor

Majority of today’s metro transit passengers own one or two smart mobile devices, which means there will be a tremendous amount of data travelling across the Wi-Fi network. Therefore, the central processing unit of the gateway must be a high-performance CPU in order to handle the network traffic. On the other hand, with a high-processing CPU, managements of metro transit companies may consider implementing multimedia infotainment in the trains.

Environmental Reliability

The onboard gateway must be reliable to operate in a rolling stock environment. Compliance and hardware design for this type of demanding environment must be taken into consideration.

Lanner’s Solution

By taking the requirements above into consideration, Lanner’s LVR-5700 serves as the ideal onboard gateway to provide Wi-Fi access for in-train passengers. LVR-5700 is driven by Intel® Core™ i7-3517UE Processor to deliver extreme data processing capability and multimedia performance for onboard infotainment and network traffic management.

Regarding network connectivity, LVR-5700 provides 8 rugged M12 PoE LAN ports. The PoE ports meet IEEE 802.3af standard. With PoE Ethernet functionality, LVR-5700 is able to serve as the Wi-Fi hot-spot by connecting with wireless AP or routers. In addition, the internal of LVR-5700 is designed with a mini-PCIe socket with SIM card reader which can provide another source of wireless network (3G/4G-LTE).

With regards of environmental reliability, LVR-5700 is compliant with EN50155 EMI only standard and has passed MIL-STD-810G for shock and vibration resistance so that the gateway can operate stably in a traveling train.

From the discussion, LVR-5700 can be well-deployed as an onboard gateway in metro transportations. For other applications, LVR-5700 can also be ideally implemented in airports, rail stations, city transportations, shopping malls and stadiums in a similar approach.