Freight Train monitoring: A Case-Study for the pSHIELD Project

Embedded Systems (ES) are increasingly being used in critical applications, where Security, Privacy and Dependability (SPD) attributes are essential. The pSHIELD research project, funded in the framework of the European ARTEMIS program, introduces some innovative approaches to address SPD issues for ES. In this paper, after an introduction to the scope of the pSHIELD project, we describe a case study application to the monitoring of freight trains transporting hazardous materials. The application uses heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to measure environmental parameters like temperature, vibrations and transmit them to the security control center. The sensors are integrated by means of an appropriate middleware and data is elaborated by a specfically developed application. We report the architecture and the results achieved by testing the application and some of its relevant SPD functionalities, including data criptography, in a real railway environment.