Railway applications | Topics
Railway applications demand high availability and a high level of safety from both hardware and software. SYS TEC electronic has been developing electronic assemblies for this sector on behalf of its customers for several years and has built up expertise in a range of solutions:
Examples:
- Communication computers with interfaces for Gigabit Ethernet, CAN, RS485, Wi-Fi, GSM, LTE and GPS
- Power supplies with a wide input voltage range of 16.8 VDC – 160 VDC
- Embedded controllers for functional safety applications
- I/O modules for digital and high-precision analogue interfaces
We undertake the development of your hardware and software in accordance with the standards for railway applications (EN50126, EN50155, EN50128, EN50129) and manufacture these as series-produced products at our site. In the railway sector, high availability and a long product lifespan are essential. Consequently, the requirements for the hardware and software of electronic assemblies are generally more stringent. This is reflected in wider temperature ranges, greater immunity to EMC phenomena, a robust design of the electronics, and greater insulation distances for altitudes of up to 5,000 metres. In addition to these high product requirements, significantly increased demands must also be met in the development process for both hardware and software.
The starting point for product development at SYS TEC electronic is a clearly defined set of system requirements, which we receive from our clients. We support our clients in drawing up these requirements by applying requirements engineering techniques. The requirements are recorded and managed using the Polarion requirements management tool. For each requirement, tests for analysis and validation are linked; for multiple tests, the test runs are then planned and executed. The results are also stored in Polarion. In the event of changes to requirements or system components, the impacts can be easily identified when carrying out the impact analysis.
Applications for the rail sector are characterised by a long life cycle of more than 20 years. It is therefore important that designs are accompanied by thorough and traceable documentation. When components are discontinued, knowledge of the key parameters and characteristics of the obsolete component or the affected circuit section is essential in order to find a replacement with comparable characteristics.
In software design, we use tried-and-tested techniques to prevent errors right from the coding stage. To support the extended life cycle and ensure good traceability, software requirements from the requirements management tool are directly linked to the corresponding lines of code in the software. Changes to the software are documented in a traceable manner in the version control tool Git.
The design phase is followed by a comprehensive verification phase. By adopting a step-by-step approach during implementation, we achieve high test coverage for the design and the specified requirements. In the software domain, we utilise techniques familiar from the field of functional safety. These tests are supported by various tools for static code analysis, unit testing and continuous integration. All these methods are employed with the aim of detecting errors at an early stage.
In our in-house EMC laboratory, we carry out all conducted immunity tests on the prototype assemblies to verify the robustness of the design. Further EMC, environmental and vibration tests for the certification of the devices are carried out in external laboratories.
The assemblies are manufactured at our production facility in Germany, from SMD and THT assembly right through to painting, potting, assembly and final assembly. We place great emphasis on achieving high test coverage through various test steps, such as AOI, ICT, high-voltage testing, functional tests and burn-in in our climate chamber.
