Analysis of directional antenna for railroad crossing safety applications

Abstract

A rapidly deployable and cost-effective railroad crossing early warning system integrated with the railway system is attractive due to its protection of the unmanned grade crossings, which requires a warning system with longdistance communication link. In this paper, we investigate the problem of suitable antenna selection for such a railway warning system. First, the antenna criteria for railroad crossing safety applications are described based on practical system considerations, the safe distances on the road and on the railway. Then, the optimal antenna pattern is derived theoretically to get the smallest size which fits for the practical installation. We also conducted a feasibility study of an array antenna through measurements on a near field scanner 1 .

A 5.9 GHz Channel Characterization at Railroad Crossings for Train-to-Infrastructure (T2I) Communications

“…Trains are considered as part of the intelligent transportation system and multiple applications are enabled by smart and connected vehicles in the broader sense. Regarding the safety applications using wireless protocols, reference [23] explores the antenna basis for a train crossing and derives an optimal antenna pattern for practical usage. Moreover, references [3][4][5] presents the DSRC, a vehicular communication system protocol that uses the 5.9 GHz frequency band, which can provide sufficient safety for T2I scenarios and the potential for using the vehicular communication system for the train-safety application.…”