SWTbahn Simulator: Digital Simulation of Train Movements
Description

The Software Technologies Research Group (SWT) has built a digital model railway (SWTbahn [1–2]) for use in teaching. It gives students a realistic case study to support their learning of important principles in the design, programming, and verification of safety-critical systems. The BiDiB library (libbidib) [1] provides the necessary software interface to control model railway hardware. However, the testing and debugging of SWTbahn software has to be conducted on a physical model railway, which may not be accessible at all times.

This thesis shall (a) conduct a comparative literature and tool (e.g., [3, 4]) review on time-based and event-based simulation approaches to railway movements, especially in the context of the SWTbahn; (b) extend the existing SWTbahn Emulator [5], which emulates the low-level BiDiB hardware, to support the simulation of train movements over a given track layout; and (c) evaluate the realism and limitations of the extended SWTbahn Emulator when compared to a physical SWTbahn. A physics or game engine may be employed to simulate realistic train behaviours, e.g., a train's acceleration based on its weight and requested speed, a train collision, or a derailment due to debris or misconfigured points.

The ideal student for this thesis topic will have a keen interest in practical programming and high confidence systems. Knowledge in C or Python programming, or game engine frameworks would be advantageous. Missing knowledge in some areas or technologies can be acquired during the thesis.

Supervisor Bernhard Luedtke
Suitable for
Bachelors
Literature
  1. Low-level digital control library (BiDiB). Available at https://github.com/uniba-swt/libbidib (last accessed on 30 Nov 2022).
  2. Prototype tool for controlling trains using BiDiB. Available at https://github.com/uniba-swt/swtbahn-cli (last accessed on 30 Nov 2022).
  3. N. Piganeau. Train Signalling Simulator (TS2). Available at https://ts2.github.io (last accessed on 30 Nov 2022).
  4. R. J. Versluis. Rocrail. Available at https://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php (last accessed on 30 Nov 2022).
  5. T. Homeyer. SWTbahn Emulator: A Digital Twin of a Computer-Controlled Model Railway. Bachelor’s thesis, SoSe 2021, The University of Bamberg, Germany.
Mionathrú is déanaí: Monday, 25 March 2024, 11:19 AM