PHYTEC

Bombardier Transportation is a company that is part of the Canadian Bombardier Group, which manufactures locomotives, motor coaches, trams, underground trains, city trains and passenger compartment rail cars.
 
If a motor coach is equipped with EBI Star 1000, its current position can be determined with the assistance of GPS and it can be connected with the control center via the radio connection using GSM/GSM-R. This train equipment has been designed especially for railway operations and the specific requirements of this sector. This is true, on the one hand, for the functional requirements, which make a simple integration into operations possible. For instance, EBI Star 1000 offers a wide variety of interfaces to collect all kinds of information about the motor coach and the train, which is subsequently transmitted to the control center. It includes everything from digital I/O’s to serial interfaces (RS 422, RS 485, MVB) to the Ethernet. The collected data is time and position stamped and buffered in the device to ensure optimized transmission. Furthermore, it allows the motor coach operator to make manual entries pertaining to the condition or state of the train, which are directly sent to the control center. On the other hand, EBI Star 1000 also has the capability to receive messages from the control center and display them to the operator if necessary.
 
In order to bring the project to a successful completion despite the development time constraints and the high standards the hardware would have to meet, PHYTEC was involved in the project at an early stage. PHYTEC assumed responsibility for the specific development and the OEM production of the hardware, as well as the B2B package and the project-specific customization of the Linux distribution. This allowed the Bombardier project team to focus entirely on the application end and the railway technology core competency. PHYTEC’s processor module phyCore-MPC5200B I/O provides the new basis for EBI Star 1000. The integration of this proven standard module into the specifically customized peripheral electronic system makes it possible to comply with all project-specific requirements in a cost-effective manner, whereby an expansion bus was used to make EBI Star 1000 fit for future requirements as it allows for a wide range of different expansions. Nevertheless, on its surface, the device is fully compatible with all its previous versions.