199803 – Deveney – Overview of the AWARE Communications System

This paper provides an overview of the “Australia Wide Augmented Radio Environment” (AWARE) communications system being implemented on the new NR class locomotives. National Rail have developed a locomotive communications system which can accommodate the various features employed by the rail authority train radio networks over which National Rail operates.

To permit unrestricted contiguous roaming of new National Rail locomotives throughout Australia, a complex suite of communications equipment for each locomotive has been developed. AWARE has been designed to permit locomotive drivers to have direct voice and data communications with the National Rail communications network from anywhere in Australia, provide communications between the locomotive drivers and the individual rail authority control officers and provide local communications for train to train operations.

The system has been designed so that either driver on the locomotive has independent or parallel access to the various AWARE operating functions. AWARE provides three touch-screen man/machine interfaces in-cab consoles, each one located in the three primary driving positions.

A Global Positioning System (GPS) is used to monitor and record the position of the locomotives as well as trigger the automatic switching of AWARE radios between the various operating modes. Manual switching between modes by the drivers is also achievable using the touch-screen.

Existing in-cab safe-working systems, such as VicTrack Alternate Safe Working (ASW) system has been accommodated in the design. Innovations in the area of in-cab control of trackside infrastructure has been provided for as far as it is practical (eg DICE).

The fault tolerance and system redundancy of AWARE has been carefully considered. AWARE has been designed such that any single point of failure will not cause the loss of communications with the respective rail authority. AWARE constantly monitors its own health and displays any faults to the driver. A fall back communications path has been made available to the driver in the event of an AWARE emergency, via a dedicated handset and socket, which provides independent access to the land mobile satellite transceiver equipment.