Protos light rail vehicle

Source: CAN Newsletter Rail 2006

The Protos light rail vehicles by Fahrzeugtechnik Dessau (FTD) are electrically engineered by a member of CAN in Automation. Another member supplies the door control units, which provide CANopen interfaces for integration into the vehicle network. The device controls the DC motor that moves the door and interfaces by means of digital I/Os the step treat module. The CANopen interface runs 250 kbit/s. The modular Protos regional trains are powered by diesel or electro motors and achieve a maximum speed of 160 km/h. In the beginning of this year, Connexxion ordered five of these trains. A two-coaches train with a total length of 54,5 m provides 172 to 184 passenger seats. At the Innotrans 2006, FTD launches the Protos trains officially. Each passenger vehicle comprises four doors. The CANopen communication between doors and train controller includes train stand still and door open/close release information transmitted in periodic (100 ms) PDOs. The door control unit sends open requests to the train controller. Faults such as broken limit switch are reported in TPDOs send to the train controller. The door control unit provides several configuration parameters (e.g. time duration to keep the door open before it is automatically closed) accessible by SDO communication. The train controller supervises the door control units by means of the node guarding protocol. The train controller sends the collected NMT operational information by means of periodic (100 ms) PDO communication to all door control units in order to inform everyone. This PDO is used by all NMT slave devices to supervise the NMT master device. Information sent by CANopen devices in NMT pre-operational or NMT stopped state are regarded as invalid. The door control systems are available for pneumatic and electric drives. Most of the door control systems are customized. In addition to door controllers for rail vehicles, the company provides door controllers for buses and for trolley buses.