ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-10629
Open Date: 23/06/2021 17:29 CEST
Closing Date: 06/10/2021 13:00 CEST

Objective: The objective of the activity is to develop and test the control and management protocol stacks of railway control communication via satellite, necessary also for the integration of satellite and terrestrial railway control networks. Testing will be carried out through realistic packet level simulations via a developed software-defined radio test-bed. Targeted Improvements:Enabling the use of satellite for railway control communication. Description: The European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) and the International Union of Railways (UIC) have started to define the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) as a successor of the current GSM-R system. FRMCS is planned to be operational before GSM-R’s predicted saturation in 2030, and SATCOM is identified as a promising component of the future system. The integration of satellite into FRMCS will require developing signalling mechanisms that enable both networks to exchange configuration, management and monitoring information. Hence, this activity will develop the controland management protocol stacks enabling railway control communication via satellite in compliance with FRMCS. Signalling procedureswill be defined and tested, including handshaking, registration, call establishments, priority access, handovers, outage detectionsandreporting. The protocols will be 5G compatible to ensure full integration into the FRMCS railway control services. Multilink capabilities and integration with the user plane will be studied. Packet-level simulation will be carried out to test and evaluate theprotocol stacks. A prototype of the control and management protocols will be implemented in a Software Defined Radio (SDR) test-bed. End-to end testing will be carried out including integration with the user plane.

Directorate: Directorate Telecom Integrated Applica
Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Contracts Officer: Monica Mezzadri
Initiating Service: TIA-TI
IP Measure: N/A
Prog. Reference: E/0534-04A – 4S-Other Act. Prod&T
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: AT+BE+CH+CZ+DE+DK+EL+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO
Technology Keywords: 6-A-II-Telecom Signal Processing
Products Keywords: 4-B-3-a-Telemetry and Telecommand equipment, Tracking, Ranging and Doppler measurement equipment, CODECS,…