Study on feasibility of SATCOM for railway communication

Final Report
Unknown
The results from the assessment are uncertain
Fully Compliant The technology holds a TRL superior to 7
CRT-NONT-7
Partially
Compliant
The technology holds a TRL6 and it is close to reaching TRL7
Not Compliant The technology holds a TRL lower than 6
Not Applicable
Unknown
This criteria has not been assessed
The results from the assessment are uncertain
General comments:
Table 39: Horizontal assessment criteria of the non-technical requirements
CRT-NONT-1 is an achievable criterion with a wide range of complying solutions. It is also a
useful criterion as it discards the solutions that have not been developed yet and reduces the
pool of plausible candidates.
CRT-NONT-2 shows that there is still a gap for improvement regarding maintainability. The
majority of SATCOM solutions require parabolic antennas introducing more vulnerability to the
system and increasing maintenance requirements. This is even more relevant in broadband
solutions.
CRT-NONT-3 assesses whether or not the solutions proposed are efficient within the existing
infrastructure. It is regarded that this criterion is easily achievable by the majority of the
solutions.
CRT-NONT-4, as an economic criterion, is positive for all the candidates when compared to the
GSM-R baseline. The solutions labelled N/A have not been assessed within the scope of the
cost-benefit analysis.
CRT-NONT-5 shows an equivalent result to CRT-NONT-4.
CRT-NONT-6 shows that the majority of the candidates will require a slight modification in the
design to comply with the certification standards imposed by the railway sector. However, it
appears as an achievable target and it shows full compliance for the theoretical, non-deployed
solutions, which have been assumed to be designed from the ground up for railway use.
CRT-NONT-7 shows the solutions proposed have sufficient technology readiness to operate
the services, apart from MEO C-band and GEO L-band +Antares, which have not been
developed yet and are considered as potential solutions based on their technical features.
Special attention will be paid to Iridium NEXT, which partially complies with CRT-NONT-1. This is due
to the fact that the provider ensures its services until 2032, even though it is expected to keep working
beyond this date. It is also worth pointing out that future planned technologies such as GEO L-band +
Antares CS (within the IRIS FOC) or even hypothetical solutions such as the MEO C-band, are
assumed to comply fully with certification standard criteria. As pointed out before, this is due to the fact
that in the case that those technologies were developed (or adopted) for the railway purpose, those
technologies would incorporate the certification standards compliance as a requirement in the design.
Doc.Nº: SRAIL-FNR-010-IND
Edit./Rev.: 1/1
Date: 16/02/2017
Page 164 of 285