Distributed intelligence on board with DIOLINE PLC

When used on rail vehicles, the LÜTZE DIOLINE PLC compact controller enables decentralised and autonomous preprocessing of functions below the main control level – the latter is thus relieved and becomes more reliable.An ideal application for the LÜTZE DIOLINE PLC compact control system can be found in the new ALSTOM^® vehicles "Coradia Polyvalent". These vehicles are used for local transportation in eleven French regions. A special feature of this new vehicle type is the use of several hybrid drives. They are driven by diesel aggregates or catenaries. The proven LÜTZE DIOLINE PLC control nodes are used on these trains as "decentral intelligence" and control the motor management functions.The control effort on modern rail vehicles is continually developing. In addition to the control technology for motor management functions, stricter safety and comfort standards demand greater control requirements.Processing of this high signal density just at the main control level would be disadvantageous, as the main control would be overloaded with many “non-critical signals”. Also, a tailoring to only one main control does not provide any redundancies and thus could affect reliability.

Here, a modularised preprocessing of all signals with the LÜTZE DIOLINE PLC controller at subsystem level seems the ideal solution. The DIOLINE PLC allows "distributed intelligence" with partial control functions below the main control level. The benefits are obvious:

• Relieves the central control system and the bus system
• Reduces response times to critical signals
• Maintenance friendly: Simplified troubleshooting
• Higher availability: Creation of redundancies via modularisation and therefore high fail-safety

Up to six LÜTZE DIOLINE PLC compact controls provide the congenial hardware platform in the form of remote bus units on the new “Coradia Polyvalent” as used by SNCF. This platform allows flexible field bus configuration: Firstly, via MVB for the communication with the main control system in the vehicle (TCMS) and secondly via CAN-J1939 for the communication with the motor unit (Powerpack).

All functions of the DIOLINE PLC can be freely programmed (acc. to IEC 61131-3). The LÜTZE DIOLINE modules which have been proven for many years and are available as I/O interfaces with analogue and digital I/Os. These assemblies are integrated via the LÜTZE L-Bus Interface.

ALSTOM® has up to six so-called "power packs" for the new regional trains “Coradia Polyvalent”. The ALSTOM® "Powerpack" is a combined diesel-electro drive system that integrates all individual components: A diesel motor (340 kW) that, in combination with the generator, forms a power aggregate and supplies DC power to the drive chain.

Each DIOLINE PLC acts as a SLAVE of the main control (TCMS). The management of the Diesel motor control (electronic Diesel controller) as well as the cooling unit (cooling control unit) is controlled via the CAN-J1939 bus interface. For this, the CAN-J1939 interface library of the DIOLINE PLC was further developed by LÜTZE for communication with the motor control device from MAN as well as the cooling system from Bosch Rexroth®.

The LÜTZE DIOLINE PLC records and processes the signals for the RPM target value, stator, supply and particle filter temperature, for the filling level of the motor oil and the water level in the cooling system. All data is recorded and processed separately for each Powerpack.

LÜTZE Transportation GmbH has modified the DIOLINE PLC accordingly to meet the special needs of the "Coradia Polyvalent":

• Development of a CAN-J1939 Interface library for communication between DIOLINE PLC and the motor control unit from MAN (BOSCH)
• Development of an expansion board with digital inputs for the control system DIOLINE PLC so that the position in the vehicle can be coded via these configuration inputs
• Expansion of the internal diagnosis memory of the DIOLINE PLC to 1 MB
• Use of internal and external plug connectors with gold-plated contacts.