Wireless telecommunications in railways — Flash-orthogonal frequency division modulation — a case study

Abstract

On-board wireless telecommunications in railways operate in a challenging environment including rapidly fading radio channels and various sources of statistically variable interference. These conditions hamper seamless, high-rate data transmission by making fast handovers to ground base stations difficult. This paper addresses networking techniques wireless communication in trains by presenting a technical overview of wireless communications options and reporting field experiments using Flash-orthogonal frequency division modulation (OFDM) technology. The research is based on in vivo measurements recorded in high-speed Pendolino-trains in Finland. The results indicate that Flash-OFDM technology fulfils the coverage and service accessibility requirements for high-rate interactive multi-media services with respect to latency and data rate, provided that loading of the Flash-OFDM network due to other users remains low.