• AMD Embedded G‑Series APU
• Inter­face for GPS, UMTS/GSM
• Odo­me­ter
• -40° C to +85°C ope­ra­ting temperature
• EN 50155 compliant

Nurem­berg, Ger­ma­ny — Janu­ary 17, 2014. MEN’s fami­ly of modu­lar and robust box PCs is gro­wing ste­adi­ly and is in many cases a com­pact and cost-effi­ci­ent alter­na­ti­ve for appli­ca­ti­ons which, until now, have been imple­men­ted using indus­tri­al PCs. The latest pro­ject of Deut­sche Bahn and MEN, for exam­p­le, uses a box PC for pre­cis­e­ly posi­tio­ning a train.

Exact Positioning for Efficient Track Usage

The box PC con­trols all func­tions requi­red for the exact posi­tio­ning of a train on the rail­way net­work of Deut­sche Bahn.

For this, the box PC, which is equip­ped with two anten­nas, recei­ves GPS data sent from seve­ral satel­li­tes and for­wards them to the con­trol cen­ter via UMTS, whe­re the posi­ti­on and the cur­rent speed are cal­cu­la­ted. Due to dif­fe­ren­tia­ted GPS, a loca­ti­on accu­ra­cy of less than 3 m can be pro­vi­ded, which means that the exact track can be deter­mi­ned. Equip­ped with an odo­me­ter, the sys­tem sup­ports dead recko­ning func­tion­a­li­ty which ensu­res that the exact posi­ti­on of a vehic­le can be iden­ti­fied, even if the satel­li­te signal is inter­rupt­ed, for exam­p­le while dri­ving through a tunnel.

The exact posi­tio­ning down to the track offers cru­cial advan­ta­ges regar­ding track uti­liza­ti­on, wai­ting times and power con­sump­ti­on. This way, a fas­ter train can over­ta­ke a slower one bet­ween sta­ti­ons wit­hout dan­ger, trains can be more quick­ly cou­pled in switch yards using sui­ta­ble soft­ware, or the train speed can be adapt­ed to the landscape.

The sys­tem can also retroac­tively be equip­ped with up to four PCI Express® Mini­Cards, each with dual-SIM, dif­fe­rent I/O inter­faces such as CAN or RS232/RS485/RS422 using SA-Adap­ters, or an addi­tio­nal hard disk.

The box PC is a cus­to­mer-spe­ci­fic ver­si­on of the BL50W, which is available as a stan­dard pro­duct. The BL50W is based on the T48N AMD Embedded G‑Series APU, and equip­ped with four PCI Express® Mini Card slots with 8 SIM card slots as well as a GPS inter­face. Addi­tio­nal­ly it offers two Dis­play­Po­rts, two Giga­bit Ether­net chan­nels via robust M12 con­nec­tors, two USB 2.0 and five slots for seri­al I/O or CAN bus, as well as a num­ber of uni­ver­sal inputs and relay outputs.

The BL50W is desi­gned for fan­less ope­ra­ti­on in the exten­ded ope­ra­ting tem­pe­ra­tu­re ran­ge of ‑40 to +85°C, and deve­lo­ped in com­pli­ance with EN 50155 for use in rail­way appli­ca­ti­ons. The stan­dard BL50W also com­pli­es with the requi­re­ments for E‑marking accor­ding to ISO 7637–2 for auto­mo­ti­ve appli­ca­ti­ons. As the I/O part and the CPU part are imple­men­ted on two sepa­ra­te PCBs insi­de the box PC, the sys­tem can be easi­ly and cost-effec­tively adapt­ed to the customer’s wishes.

MEN Mikro Elektronik – Profile and Mission

Embedded Solutions — Rugged Computer Boards and Systems for Harsh, Mobile and Mission-Critical Environments

Sin­ce its foun­ding in 1982, MEN Mikro Elek­tro­nik has focu­sed on inno­va­ti­on, relia­bi­li­ty and fle­xi­bi­li­ty to deve­lop and pro­du­ce stan­dard and cus­tom com­pu­ting solu­ti­ons that employ the hig­hest tech­no­lo­gy levels. The com­pa­ny — with more than 250 employees world­wi­de — pro­vi­des a robust offe­ring of high­ly relia­ble embedded COTS boards and devices wide­ly used in extre­me envi­ron­men­tal con­di­ti­ons found in indus­tri­al and safe­ty-cri­ti­cal applications.

MEN Mikro Elektronik’s pro­duct offe­ring com­pri­ses a huge sel­ec­tion of:

• Com­pactPCI® / Plu­s­IO, Com­pactPCI® Seri­al and VME­bus boards and 19″ systems
• Stan­dar­di­zed com­pu­ter-on-modu­les with car­ri­er board deve­lo­p­ment support
• Stan­dar­di­zed mez­za­ni­ne I/O cards to com­ple­te sys­tem functionality
• Ether­net and fieldbus net­work inter­faces, swit­ches, rou­ters and gateways
• Sca­lable box PCs and panel PCs with easy adapt­a­ti­on capabilities
• Safe com­pu­ters cer­ti­fia­ble up to SIL 4 and DAL‑A

For indi­vi­du­al requi­re­ments, start­ing with deve­lo­p­ment through design-in and bey­ond, MEN pro­vi­des its cus­to­mers with advice and sup­port as well as with sys­tem design, con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on and envi­ron­men­tal qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on in accordance with indus­try standards.

The company’s core com­pe­ten­ci­es encom­pass x86 and RISC pro­ces­sor archi­tec­tures, deve­lo­p­ment rules for safe appli­ca­ti­ons, ana­log I/O design, FPGA tech­no­lo­gy and Win­dows®, Linux and real-time ope­ra­ting sys­tems. Addi­tio­nal exper­ti­se includes RAMS and obso­le­s­cence manage­ment as well as the deve­lo­p­ment of com­pu­ting hard­ware for ope­ra­ti­on in harsh and extre­me envi­ron­men­tal conditions.

MEN Mikro Elektronik’s com­pu­ter solu­ti­ons are used in harsh mis­si­on- and safe­ty-cri­ti­cal envi­ron­ments found in the trans­por­ta­ti­on (rail, road, air, sea) and indus­tri­al (auto­ma­ti­on, power & ener­gy, medi­cal) markets.

The com­pa­ny is cer­ti­fied to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 (envi­ron­ment), EN 9100 (aero­space) and IRIS (rail­way) qua­li­ty manage­ment sys­tems, pro­vi­des sys­tems accor­ding to ISO 7637–2 (road traf­fic) requi­re­ments and is a mem­ber of seve­ral indus­try asso­cia­ti­ons, con­sor­ti­ums and alli­ances, inclu­ding VITA and PICMG.