MAROS sensor could boost railway capacity 35 per cent

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Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and ITK Engineering have developed a sensor to determine the exact position of trains, aiming to increase capacities of existing railway networks.

With the help of a sensor, researchers of KIT can determine the precise position of a train and make railway transport more efficient
With the help of a sensor, researchers of KIT can determine the precise position of a train and make railway transport more efficient - Bosch Zünder/Jan Potente

The ‘Magnetic Railway Onboard Sensor’ (MAROS) uses an electromagnetic fingerprint to determine the position of trains. Researchers believe that this could address issues around lacking capacities and frequent delays by allowing for an increased number of trains on the same track within a shorter period of time.

“When the position of a train on a track is determined more precisely and reliably, trains could pass a certain route section at shorter intervals and the capacity per track kilometre would be increased,” said Dr Martin Lauer from KIT’s Institute of Measurement and Control (MRT).

Lauer said that a metal railway track has a type of fingerprint with highly individual marks, which MAROS can recognise to localise trains. He explained that the sensor, attached to the vehicle’s undercarriage, measures an electromagnetic field that is influenced by the ferromagnetic materials of the rails and the materials used for fixing them.

“In particular, variations of the electromagnetic field are measured. In this way, an exact electromagnetic fingerprint can be allocated to every rail section,” Lauer said.

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According to the team, to allocate the fingerprint to an exact geographical position, a software backend and intelligent algorithms are required. Tobias Hofbauer, Railway Technology Programme manager of ITK Engineering said that every railway line must be measured at least once before these data can be superimposed on maps of the train route.

Solutions currently used to determine the positions of trains have deficiencies that the MAROS sensor does not, said researchers. 

For example, information carriers (balises) integrated in the rail are reliable, but expensive. Camera systems aren’t effective at night or during snowfall. GPS signals reach their limits in tunnels, mountain valleys or street canyons. Moreover, they don’t allow reliable detection of which several neighbouring tracks are used, the team pointed out.

“Localisation is more exact than ever, cheaper than other technologies, and can be used on all steel rails worldwide,” said Hofbauer. “Extensive use of MAROS would increase the utilisation of railway networks by 35 per cent.”

Test drives have been made on different routes near Vienna in Austria. The sensor was found to work well and is planned to be commercially available by early 2025. The test results will be presented at the InnoTrans trade fair, 20-23 September in Berlin.