Power data fusion for train and railway electrification system

The reduction of energy consumption in electric trains is a big challenge of the next years. Lower consumptions means a more convenient design of the electric power supply network of the trains; in particular increasing the margin between peak demand and maximum power limit of the network improves the overall reliability. To this aim, the energy recovered from braking of one train may be used to aid the acceleration of the same or another train. Recovering energy from braking is a well-known idea, and the possibility to exchange energy between breaking trains and departing trains is very attractive. With this goal in mind the train vectors need to exchange information about their instantaneous power consumption and the data should be available for comparisons in a common time scale. In this paper will be presented an Android based measurement system for electric trains able to make synchronous measurements. The measurement system presented is composed of wireless sensors making it easy to install on modern train vectors.