A Link-Layer Slave Device Design of the MVB-TCN Bus (IEC 61375 and IEEE 1473-T)

The train communication network standard was approved in 1999 by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the IEEE to warrant train and equipment interoperability. However, we have not found any published work presenting a top-down device design that is compliant with this standard. None of the found publications deals with the real-time protocols of the design nor resolves the many open points left in it. The link-layer design that is presented here implements the full set of specifications of the IEC 61375-1 standard (also named the IEEE 1473-T standard) that is related to the slave devices for the multifunction vehicle bus (MVB), including all of its real-time protocols, procedures, and free options. It is the first step to obtaining a true system-on-chip, including all the layers of any MVB device, as stated by the standard. Our proposal is based on a concurrent, easily parameterized and reconfigurable, top-down design procedure that is implemented in a single field-programmable gate array plus a very simple embedded application processor. The performance of our design is only limited by the standard constraints themselves, which is restricted neither by its proposed implementation nor by our design criteria.