Enhancing Rail Safety and Freight/Passenger Operations Efficiency
When Precision Matters: Position Location Antennas for Rail
Calian designs and manufactures innovative, high quality and cost effective Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) antenna solutions, providing position location antennas for Rail. Our GNSS antennas have been selected by leading Rail operators in North America who need accurate, reliable and robust GNSS antennas to support their safety improvement initiatives and achieve higher utilization of their rolling stock.
Calian’s antenna solutions are bringing tangible safety and operational benefits to rail operations, meeting regulatory requirements (such as the Rail Safety Improvement Act RSIA08) and efficiency goals. Our Rail customers tell us that selection of our antennas was based on:
- Highest accuracy compared to the competition
- Lowest Price/performance ratio
- Responsive technical and installation support
At Calian we care that customers are successful and have built a reputation in the industry for responsive customer support. This includes working with your teams to ensure that your installation design maximises positional accuracy of your rail assets.
GNSS Antennas for Railroad Operations
Railroad operations are one of the most challenging environments for GNSS systems. These systems are exposed to seasonal weather conditions, interfering RF signals, vibration and shock, as well as reduced exposures to the satellite constellations in the sky. To be successful in this environment, GNSS antennas for railroad operations must be robust enough to reliably operate in all environments encountered by your Rail. Equally, the antenna must protect against the proliferation of intermodulation and saturation caused by high level cellular and LTE signals.
With the growing availability of GNSS constellations, that includes satellite systems from the USA, Europe, China and the Russian Federation, the proliferation of GNSS signals (including L2C and L5), and the lowering costs of precision GNSS receivers, there is significant opportunity for railroad operators to increase the safety, reliability and operational efficiency of their systems with high-precision Calian antennas.
Positive Train Control Antenna
In the USA, Positive Train Control (PTC) and Positive Train Location (PTL) is taking advantage of the increasing precision of GNSS antenna systems provided by Calian. Calian GNSS antennas provides the ability to determine the direction that a train is oriented – even while stationary – which track it is on, and speed of travel. All of these measures are essential for PTC and PTL. However, the roof of a locomotive is a less than ideal environment with various metal surfaces and other antennas operating in proximity to each other. Calian has the hard-won experience and tools to assist you in avoiding potential problems and select the ideal antenna and implementation options for your needs, ensuring the success of your project.
GNSS Train Tracking
An added complication for GNSS train tracking is the variety of landscapes that trains journey through that introduces limited sky view and high signal reflection environments. Calian’s antennas are designed to work under these hostile signal conditions and provide superior performance for our customers, supporting rapid constellation acquisition and multipath rejection.
Railway GPS Tracking
Railway GPS tracking is becoming increasingly complicated due to the growing number of geographic areas where inter-modulated cellular and other radio signals (such as the 700MHz band) have the potential to cause interference for GNSS systems. In response to this, Calian offers a range of robust GNSS antennas with pre-filters designed to mitigate the effects of such signals providing you with accurate, reliable and robust positional information that you can rely on.
Pre-filtered Calian antennas are available in single, dual, and triple band GNSS versions for all of the GNSS constellations and are available in a variety of compact sizes and economical prices.
Using its expertise in antenna design, Calian is now offering antennas covering other applications and frequencies. Calian also provides options for our customers that include antennas for railway communications (Inverted F antennas).
Calian’s antennas provide:
- More accurate positioning of assets
- Superior performance in urban canyons or high reflection environments since Calian’s antennas provide superior multi-path rejection
- Multi-constellation (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou) coverage to maximize availability of satellite signals
- Range of sizes from very compact to mid-sized to suit most every application
- Low current models to address applications requiring the use of battery powered receivers
- Wide voltage range to work with virtually every receiver on the market
- Models for Iridium™ and Globalstar™ use
- Strong electro-static discharge immunity
