Keywords: optical fiber communications, passive wavelength division multiplexing, network architectures, train communication network, multiservice transmissions, on-board broadband communication, harsh environments.

The amount of data exchanged in onboard train networks should drastically increase in the near future. The first reason is the higher need to improve the quality, reliability, safety and security of railway transport systems with the interconnection of more and more devices in train. The second reason concerns the increasing demand for high-tech services by passengers, especially high data rate internet services. Therefore, the need for high capacity is not the only issue in the train network, others major challenges lie in the great immunity to electromagnetic interference and heterogeneity of signal rates and protocols to be delivered to the various train devices: radio frequency signals, baseband data, IP-data, specific formats such as CCTV signals, etc. To overcome these challenges, we have investigated an optical fiber communication link for trains that uses passive wavelength division multiplexing architecture to support the simultaneous transmission of multiple signal formats over a single optical fiber.

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