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Overview
The
US Congress in 2008 mandated the deployment of Positive Train Control
(PTC) systems: advanced, wired- and wireless-networked communications
systems to prevent train-to-train collisions, enforce train speed
restrictions, and provide safety for road and railway workers.
PTC
has four primary components
- Equipment
deployed on the locomotive/train
- Equipment
deployed trackside
- Network access
points deployed at or near trackside that are connected to systems
operating at a remotely located control center
- A
bi-directional wireless data link that links all these elements. It
is this component upon which the Interest Group shall focus.
A
presentation (IEEE 802.11-11/1032r1) was made
at both the IEEE 802.11 WNG and IEEE 802.15 WNG sessions at San
Francisco in July 2011, and the establishment of an Interest Group was
approved by the IEEE 802.15 WG during that
session. The fit with IEEE 802.15 is excellent; the released standards
and in-process work that IEEE 802.15 has done to date have addressed in
part many of the requirements for a wireless link for PTC operating in the 216-222 MHz band. This
Interest Group will review the work that has been done and propose a
path to development of a future standard for the wireless data link
element. Efforts are being made to coordinate with IEEE
VTS and to invite participation from the broad rail
transportation communications industry.
Current
Status
The
IEEE 802.15 PTC Interest Group has been meeting via a weekly telecon
since early October, while growing our membership and bringing in more
experts on radio technology, security and propagation. In late October,
we released a call for submissions for the Atlanta Plenary, and will be
discussing those submissions this week while meeting in Atlanta. All presentations will be posted on IEEE Mentor. Beyond
Atlanta, we will return to our weekly telecons as we work on the draft
Project Authorization Request (PAR) and Five Criteria (5C) documents.
It
is our desire to ask for Study Group status at Atlanta and complete the PAR and 5 Criteria documents
in the Study Group phase. The plan is to move to a full-fledged Task
Group by the following Plenary in May 2012.
How
to participate
Participate
by attending our telecons. Our telecons are on Wednesdays approximately
every week and are currently scheduled for 1600 US Eastern.
The draft agenda, conference number and access codes will be sent out
on the
reflector at least 24 hours before the meeting time. After Atlanta and
up to Jacksonville, our
telecon dates will be: 16 November, 30 November, 7 December, 14
December, 21 December, 4 January, 11 January.
IEEE
802.15 PTC Interest Group conducts their discussions on the
STDS-802-15-PTC Public Mailing List. You can learn how to subscribe to
the 802.15.4 PTC reflector by pointing your browser here.
Information
We are in the
process of collecting publicly available documents that may provide a
good overview about the state-of-the-art in PTC efforts globally.
Document submittal is simple. If you choose to grow our library of
knowledge, please do so using the standard IEEE 802 template. Please note
that submission of copyrighted, confidential or proprietary material is
prohibited. Double check for "Confidential" or "Proprietary"
boilerplate before you push the "upload" button!
Who to contact with questions
- Interim
Chair: Jon Adams (Independent)
- Interim Vice Chair: Dr. Mark Hartong, Federal Railroad Adminstration
- Secretary: TBD
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc.
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