Analysis Of High-Speed Railway Communication Using Relays

Abstract

The rapid growth in railway infrastructure and increased travel demands over the past two decades have led to significant advancements in rail systems, particularly in the areas of travel speed and transport capacity. These developments have simultaneously increased the requirements for reliable and efficient railway communication and signaling (C&S) systems. As a critical component of the railway network, the C&S system ensures safe train operations, efficient passenger communication, and overall operational reliability. However, the inherent challenges posed by high-speed rail networks—such as the frequent need for seamless handoffs due to high train mobility—make meeting these requirements particularly challenging.
This project presents an approach to address the handoff issue by implementing a group handoff strategy, which leverages relays based on Multi-Input Multi-Output Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) transmission technology. This group handoff approach, as opposed to the traditional individual handoff process, aims to reduce the complexity and increase the efficiency of handoff procedures by managing handoff events collectively. By integrating MIMO-OFDM transmission with relay nodes, this strategy improves connectivity and communication stability, even at high speeds. Various configurations, including the number of relays and transmission antennas, were tested to evaluate the system’s adaptability and performance under different conditions.
In addition to proposing the group handoff technique, this research also explores the performance of non-cooperative versus cooperative communication in a multi-tier heterogeneous network environment.
The performance of the proposed system is assessed using key metrics such as handoff probability, outage probability, coverage probability, and transmission capacity. The results demonstrate improvements in communication reliability and efficiency, offering valuable insights for enhancing modern railway C&S systems. The simulation results are carried out using MATLAB