CompactPCI has been accepted as a robust platform for the rapid development and deployment of open telecommunications system. The combination of PCI bus performance and ruggedness of the Eurocard form factor is a guarantee of high availability, reliability, high performance and ease of maintenance and upgrades. This fast growing bus architecture had significant influence to the transportation industry. The robust and compact 3U design makes it an ideal platform for space limited and vibrant transportation environment such as railway, aircraft and road vehicles. Recently, a 3U CompactPCI system had been successfully deployed in the new advance airport shuttle buses. The shuttle buses (See Fig.1) are 18 meters long and run a 25KM route, which are specially paved to work with the Advance Public Transportation System (APTS), mutually implemented by ADLINK, Nijkerk Computer Solutions, and Nijkerk Transport Systems. The system architecture is based upon the Nijkerk i-OV suite software solution, which has been developed for the Benelux market.
The 3U CompactPCI system includes a Low Power Pentium CPU module, 48-channel digital input/output module, 8-port serial communication module, GPS with Integrated On-board Information System (IBIS) module, Radio modems and a driver side LCD display with touch-screen. The IBIS is a European specification, which is designed for data processing and data transmission in public transportation vehicles such as buses and trains. The system provides the following benefits:
The objective of the system is to provide information of when the bus will arrive at the bus stop for passengers waiting at the stop, to indicate the next stopping station and estimate arrival time to the destination for the on-board passengers. Furthermore, the system is capable of sending a request for green light to the traffic light controller before passing through and can inform the driver if he or she is off schedule or off-route.
The challenge of this project is to design a system which is capable to integrate the traditional IBIS bus with a latest GPS and RF communication system at a environment which is subject to limited space and abnormal shock and vibrations. In addition to all the constraint, this project must be completed on time. The 3U CompactPCI seems to be the ideal solution to this application.
The 3U system is mounted on the ceiling above the driver's seat (See Fig. 2) and uses the buses air-conditioning to help cool the system. The low power Pentium CPU controller is chosen because cooling fans are considered to be a vulnerable part in a vibrant environment.
ADLINK cPCI-3500 is chose as the controller and it includes low power Pentium 266 CPU with heat sink, Intel 82559 Ethernet, Two RS-232, Two USB and 16M Flash Disk (See Figure 3). The CPU module support Intel pre-boot execution environment (PXE) for remote boot. By using the Intel Embedded components, the system is guaranteed long product availability and best system compatibility. The powerful Pentium 266MMX CPU allows later system enhancement to provide more information to the passenger and driver.
A Hot Swappable CompactPCI 24VDC power supply (see Fig. 4) is used to supply the power required by the system. This power module is specially customize to deal with the vehicle environment where power is sometimes unreliable especially when engine starting, current will be surged into the starter which makes the battery voltage drop in several minisecond. A low pass filter in the power module is used to deal with the transient voltage drop. Therefore, the system can remain operational during the engine start up.
In order to communicate to the devices using the existing IBIS interface, a 3U CompactPCI module is specially design to integrate the IBIS interface and GPS module. This allows the CompactPCI controller to communicate with the IBIS to display the estimated arrival time at the next stop, destination, line number, passenger counter and ticket validation. A multi-port RS-232 module is used to control the ticket vending machine, short distant radio modem for traffic light control and long distant radio modem to communicate with the bus station. The digital I/O module is used to monitor the status of the three doors and communicate with the odometer of the bus (See Fig.5). Bus route and schedule information are stored and uploaded to the depot's server.
