Far Systems On-Board Electronic Devices and Communication Solutions for the Rail Industry

Far Systems is a leader in the development and supply of on-board electronic devices and solutions. The product range consists of:

• Bus and communications
• Safety
• Control and diagnostics
• Energy and service
• Desk and drive
• Information and entertainment
• Platform screen doors (PSD)

FAR Systems provides complete integrated solutions across all its products ranges, which address a wide range of our customers’ requirements.

Far Systems plays a key role in IEC and CENELEC railway technology standardisation committees. The company also cooperates with universities and is an active member in several international research projects related to the future of international railway transport (IEC-WG43, IEC- WG46, CENELEC – WG11).

Bus and on-board communication solutions for the rail industry

Far Systems plays an important role in the field of on-board communications. Its products are compliant to IEC 61375-1 and UIC 556 standards, and supports power supplies of 24V, 37.5V, 72V and 110V.

Far Systems provides:

• WTB / MVB gateways open to WTB to Ethernet / WTB to CAN interfaces
• Fully Ethernet backbone solutions
• MVB repeaters
• Board to ground communication devices
• Different types of bus controllers and protocol converters

Railway safety solutions – event recorder (JRU)

FAR Systems recognises the safety constraints required to operate in a modern railway environment relating to passengers, rolling stock and infrastructure, with this in mind.

Far Systems takes the safety and security of passengers, rolling stocks and legal implications very seriously.

Far Systems offers devices and solutions for:

• Railway event recording (juridical recording unit)
• Acquiring, storing, maintaining and downloading all critical information to the ground server
• Dead man devices, vigilant solutions
• Automatic emergency braking devices

Control and diagnostic solutions for the rail industry

To perform control and diagnostic functions, Far Systems produced the railway programmable logic controller (RaPLC) family. Diagnostic and operation data from on-board equipments are acquired directly via distributed I/Os and MVB bus, and indirectly via communication between the RaPLC and other on-board controllers.

The RaPLCs are all:

• Equipped with MVB/ETH/Serial/CAN interfaces
• Configurable as protocol converters with any existing buses
• Support power supply of 24V, 37.5V, 72V and 110V
• Compliant to EN 50155 standard

The RaPLCs provide:

• VCU programmable functions
• Local and remote I/O
• Gateway functions between RS485 (serial interfaces, synchronous / asynchronous HDLC), MVB, CAN, Ethernet interfaces
• Easy and fast programmability using Far Systems’ PRISMA-IDE tool (compliant to IEC 1131 standard)

Energy and service solutions

Far Systems supplies the following solutions to implement complete energy / fuel measuring and management systems compliant to EN 50155, EN 50121, EN 50463 standards, for both electrical and diesel trains:

• Train energy management system (TEMS): comprised of an on-board railway energy meter, voltage and current transducers, and TEMS-basic viewer tool on ground, to analyse the energy consumption and other features like billing
• Train fuel management system (TFMS): comprised of an on-board railway fuel meter, sensors, and TFMS-basic viewer tool on ground, to analyse the fuel consumption
• Eco-drive advisory system (EDAS): the EDAS visualises and optimises the energy / fuel consumption with simple feedback to the drivers

Desk and drive solutions

Far Systems offers a wide range of display monitors (both standard and customised), speed display unit, with different solutions to switch the train driving end-to-end with reference to train diagnostics, energy / fuel consumption and authentication.

Information and entertainment solutions

Far Systems designs and supplies passenger information systems including voice announcements (crew monitors, coach internal / external displays, CCTV cameras), which are able to dynamically manage information and entertainment systems using communication channels such as Wi-Fi, GPS and GSM / GPRS.

Platform screen doors for train platforms

Far Systems, together with its well-renowned technological partner, offers the platform screen doors (PSD) system in three different configurations:

• Full-close type
• Semi-close type
• Half-height type

The Far Systems product range also offers high-speed elevators, mobile escalator and tapis roulant equipments, engineering, installation and after-sales support for both private and public services.