Aim of the course
The main purpose of the Automation Systems Integration Laboratory (which is in construction, whose second phase has now been completed) is the integration of different automation systems of distributed objects, on the example of railway traffic control, built up around the unique model of the Pomeranian Metropolitan Railway (PKM). The main users of the laboratory are students pursuing didactic tasks in the form of semester and group projects, BSc and MSc theses, and scientists dealing with and solving different problems of distributed systems, computer networks, technical diagnostics and vision systems.
Laboratory equipment
The architectural and mechanical basis for the PKM maquette is a scaled mapping of a part of the real rail network, including Wrzeszcz Station together with selected stops of the Threecity metropolitan railway (Strzyża, Kiełpinek and Osowa). The target project foresee also the way station Airport along with the functionality of the Gdynia Container Port.
Key systems (to date) included in the laboratory equipment is the physical railway tracks of the maquette (with the functions of electric power supply and electronic-computer communication), rolling stock (a team of locomotives and wagons in the TT scale, equipped with actuators enabling remote control), the main digital bus for managing the system of the busy-track sensors (balises) and track actuators (switches/junctions and semaphores), as well as a vision system, for monitoring and management of transport, including diagnostics and security.
Examples of design issues
Integration within the control system of the railway sets is accomplished by utilizing a variety of feedback systems (eg. with the use of balises detecting the presence of a train or based on a visual estimation of the position of a train set).
It is also possible to create a scheduling system, both based on images from cameras and measurements from the system balises. In this way, using automated or fully autonomous methods, you can build a secure system to avoid collisions of trains with other objects. Such a task can be carried out both on the basis of central management, as well as with the use of the classical theory of agents or methods of artificial intelligence (in this case, the agent can be an autonomous intelligent system of local control/governance which interacts with a recognizable environment). Such agents can be imbedded/implemented in trains and the switch-and-semaphore components. In addition, based on balises (under-track position sensors) it is possible to model of the European Train Control System (ETCS).
Prospects for research
The LISA laboratory expands the possibilities of practical design of integrated control systems for distributed facilities, development of the necessary theories, as well as a spectacular demonstration of different methods of traffic management of mobile agents (trains) - especially that the lab concept is modeled on the project of the currently running Pomeranian Metropolitan Railway.
The PKM maquette also enables research in the following exemplary areas: identification of simple and complex events, visual recognition of objects and their dynamic parameters, mathematical modeling (eg. the dynamics of the train sets), and computer control of distributed objects, including a cargo area (planned within the Rebiechowo-Airport station), emulating the container terminal in Gdynia. It is also possible to develop various kinds of control systems based on artificial intelligence methods (including practical implementation of agent systems).
In addition to the automated control method, it is possible of course to emulate a central operator (dispatcher) that allows manual control of individual trains and components of the rail rolling stock and track. The operator panel - stance provides an opportunity to learn the equipment for control of production lines commonly found in industry.
