On the safety design of radar based railway level crossing surveillance systems

Authors

  • Tommaso Addabbo
  • Ada Fort
  • Cristian Della Giovampaola
  • Marco Mugnaini University of Siena
  • Alberto Toccafondi
  • Valerio Vignoli

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21014/acta_imeko.v5i4.419

Abstract

Recent accidents experienced at railway level crossings are pushing researchers to design surveillance systems able to grant safety of passengers and structural integrity of trains at level crossings. The challenge is represented by granting at the same time an appropriate reliability, availability and maintainability degree despite the high safety requirements imposed by the application. The approach proposed in this paper takes into consideration the most common suggested standards used in designing this kind of systems and introduces new general concepts which demystify the use of such standards in actual applications. This paper illustrates the roadmap to be followed in general when designing level crossing monitoring systems, to minimize the risk due to object misdetection occurring on barrier closure when exploiting radar technology.

A specific surveillance system based on FMCW radar technology was used as a case study, but the approach presented in this paper has a general validity.

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Published

2016-12-30

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 4 (2016)

Section

Research Papers

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