In the recent Community and European strategies, modal shift towards green and smart transport systems, such as railroad, is a fundamental presupposition and great emphasis is given to the introduction of innovative components capable to achieve a technological renewal of the systems currently in use.

In general, rail transport systems are characterized by high structural complexity and functional components which must always ensure the best performance, ensuring high standards of safety and reliability. This results in a continued push to the introduction of modern technologies that can enhance and increase the efficiency and safety of these systems.

In this scenario the "NEMBO" project aims the study of embedded systems with high performance and reliability to meet the trend of technological renewal required in the railway transport field.

In order to deal problems related to the global railway environment about the efficient management of components, the themes that will be studied and analyzed are:

• New components and architectures for efficient command and control of signals/switches;
• Intelligent accelerometric measuring system, based on triax MEMS technology for measuring acceleration of the trains in the direction parallel to that of the vehicle;
• Innovative platform based on multi-core architectures for commercial use in safety-critical environment characterized by a high degree of SIL;
• Ethernet network for vehicle traction unit communication and control for the integration of the major subsystems of the vehicle, in order to improve the performances and reduce the energy consumption.

As regards the first point, in the current rail systems, especially in urban areas, analog technologies that do not allow high performances are still widespread, and they require constant maintenance work and high management costs. It is therefore required a shift towards optimized innovative solutions in terms of hardware and software, such as embedded systems, capable of enhancing the safety,  the efficiency, and at the same time of allowing a reduction of the  installation costs. It is proposed the study of innovative embedded systems for command and control of rail components in order to increase their efficiency.

In the context of embedded technology, besides, it will be important to study and to define an accelerometer measurement system based on MEMS technology which allows to obtain the best performance in terms of accuracy and reliability, to reduce costs and to overcome the problem of the unknown slope of the line and of the disturbances due to additional external contributions such as vibrations and lateral acceleration in curves, compared with accelerometer sensors used in existing systems onboard, such as Automatic Train Control / Protection (ATC/ATP). For this purpose, after the definition of the proper study models, data-fusion algorithms will be defined for the compensation of the error and to obtain the accelerometric information in the direction of interest.

As regards the third point, as part of the project proposal about the embedded technologies, an innovative platform will be studied and defined; it will be based on commercial multi-core architecture for safety-critical applications that can provide more safety performance, reliability and data processing systems for traffic management station. The new architecture will be characterized by a multi-core system, to replace the currently used single-processor boards, which will allow  to install on the same card "Safety-Critical " and "not-Safety-Critical” applications; the control of the cores will be managed independently by an appropriate "core manager" which will ensure the non-intrusiveness of the "non-viable” core to" the “vital” one .

Structural, functional characteristics and real time operational requirements of  “Full Ethernet Train” architecture that uses an Ethernet bus  will be defined, with the advantage of having a single integrated network, with  higher capacity for transmission of information than the MVB bus currently used  and characterized by greater efficiency. Such network architecture will be coupled with high-performing on-board subsystems, due to their integration with “full-ethernet” network and to adoption of new technologies, like the use of electronic components in SiC (Silicon Carbide) technology with low losses. The increased availability of information will enable the integration of the major subsystems of the vehicle in the full-ethernet network, in order to improve the performance and reduce the energy consumption.

The use of innovative technologies for embedded systems, therefore, will be applicable in the different analyzed contexts; in the railway sector the innovative architecture and the new structural components proposed will ensure the safe management of rail traffic, which will be characterized by higher performance within the constraints of safety, and which will allow the use of COTS components ( Commercial Off-The-Shelf), easily accessible and affordable.