(1)  Controller Board

Advanced diagnostics allow the detection of defects in wheels, bearings, tracks as well as the monitoring of bearings wear  

(2)  UIC Watchdog Board

UIC541-05's prescribed independent watchdog board. For Pneumatic Brake Equipment Applications.

(3)  Interface Board

It features digital and analog I/Os, relays outputs, as well as an optional CAN Bus interface.  

(4)  MVB Board

Our optional MVB Bus Board can be plugged into this slot.

(5)  GPS GSM-GPRS Board

Optional GPS-GSM/GPRS board for fleet management and remote diagnostics. With CAN Bus interface.

  Innovation

C-Sigma is an independent supplier of Electronic Brake Control solutions for Railway Pneumatic and Electro-Hydraulic Brake Equipments. We strongly believe that constant innovation is the key to successfully meet the most demanding customer expectations with respect to reliability, ease of use and installation, preventive maintenance.
Typical customers are Brake Equipment Manufacturers and System Integrators, for whom System or Sub-System liability is a major issue vis a vis their own customers. To allow customers to minimise the technical support resources required to meet such demands, as well as the associated risk, C-Sigma has developed an innovative double processors architecture with advanced diagnostics capabilities. Non Critical diagnostic functions are carried out by a Diagnostic Microprocessor specifically dedicated to this task. Such functions are meant to minimise failure investigation costs by allowing maintenance personnel to immediately restrict the source of a failure to a specific equipment, whose manufacturer can then be contacted for repairs or replacement.
For optimal tuning in the actual field application, the Non Critical diagnostic software can be easily updated without affecting in any way the Critical brake control functions, and diagnostics, contained in the Brake Control Microprocessor, and hence without requiring any additional approval from the transport authorities (an expensive and time consuming process).

On our path to innovation, we have recently added a unique feature (patent pending) allowing the detection of defects in wheels, bearings, tracks, as well as the monitoring of bearings wear. By a proprietary processing of jitter on speed signals, suitable plots are generated to highlight such defects.

 Safety

Of course, for railway type brake equipments, Safety is a major concern. This aspect is dealt with differently depending on the type of application.

 Pneumatic Applications

For pneumatic applications, the International Union of Railways (UIC) specifies strict requirements to be fulfilled by any Wheel Slip Prevention Equipment (fiche UIC 541-05). In particular, the fiche UIC 541-05 prescribes the use of independent watchdogs, one for each controlled axles, and which shall inhibit any override of the Main Brake Command issued by the driver, would such an override lasts for longer than 10 seconds. This is the purpose of the UIC Watchdog Board, utilised in our controllers configured for Pneumatic Brake Equipments conforming to UIC prescriptions.

 Electro-hydraulic Applications

For electro-hydraulic applications (very common in city trams and light rail vehicles), the overall System Safety is actively pursued at 3 levels:
At vehicle level, by applying the same level of redundancy for the Electronics as for the Electro-Hydraulic Units. The basic idea is that the overall vehicle Brake Sub-System shall be designed in such a way that the prescribed Emergency Brake Performances (including track brakes) are maintained even with 1 bogie failing to brake. So, the Electro-hydraulic Brake Equipment for any bogie shall be completely independent from the one of any other bogie. Therefore, in this configuration each Brake Control Unit is composed of two identical Electronic Brake Controllers (EBCs), completely independent one from the other. Where signals are exchanged (for diagnostics cross-checks) between the EBC for one bogie and the EBC for the other bogie, then special measures (such as galvanic isolation) are implemented to prevent any possible failure propagation mechanism to take place.
At brake equipment level, by ensuring that power failure always results in PARK brake applied, as the removal of power from the PARK valve coil allows the spring applied brake to naturally secure the vehicle. Furthermore, also the proportional valve (typically used in this type of equipments for controlling the brake fluid pressure), will discharge pressure from the callipers, and hence ensuring a redundant application of the full spring force.
At Diagnostics level by making sure that any failure to brake of any bogie is immediately flagged, to inform the driver of the loss of distributed redundancy, and requiring hence to limit the driving speed to a lower value, while driving back to the maintenance workshop. Diagnostic checks are very exhaustive, including: a verification by each EBC of the consistency of pressure telemetry from the controlled bogie while crosschecking also the pressure telemetry from the other bogie, monitoring of all speed sensors, monitoring of the contact status (open or closed) of the PARK relay of the other EBC, monitoring of a "good health" signal from the other EBC.

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