Stefan Schmidt

Rüdiger Kapitza

Martin Link

Matthias Müller

Tobias Friedrich

Ingo Schwarzer

Said Weiß-Saoumi

Roland Kittel

Koraltan Kaynak

Cemil Durak

Andreas Isbarn

Jörg Diestel

Jens Knittel

Marquart Franz

Carlos Morra

Susanne Stahnke

Jens Braband

Johannes Dittmann

Stephan Griebel

Andreas Krampf

Jens Radestock

Leo Strub

Kai Bleeke

Leander Jehl

Ines Messadi

Signe Schwarz-Rüsch

Lukas Pirl

Robert Schmid

Dirk Friedenberger

Jossekin Jakob Beilharz

Arne Boockmeyer

Andreas Polze

Ralf Röhrig

Hendrik Schäbe

Ricky Thiermann

The RailChain project designed, implemented, and experimentally evaluated a juridical recorder that is based on a distributed consensus protocol. That juridical blockchain recorder has been realized as distributed ledger on board the advanced TrainLab (ICE-TD 605 017) of Deutsche Bahn. For the project, a consortium consisting of DB Systel, Siemens, Siemens Mobility, the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering, Technische Universität Braunschweig, TÜV Rheinland InterTraffic, and Spherity has been formed. These partners not only concentrated competencies in railway operation, computer science, regulation, and approval, but also combined experiences from industry, research from academia, and enthusiasm from startups. Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) define distributed databases and express a digital protocol for transactions between business partners without the need for a trusted intermediary. The implementation of a blockchain with real-time requirements for the local network of a railway system (e.g., interlocking or train) allows to log data in the distributed system verifiably in real-time. For this, railway-specific assumptions can be leveraged to make modifications to standard blockchains protocols. EULYNX and OCORA (Open CCS On-board Reference Architecture) are parts of a future European reference architecture for control command and signalling (CCS, Reference CCS Architecture – RCA). Both architectural concepts outline heterogeneous IT systems with components from multiple manufacturers. Such systems introduce novel challenges for the approved and safety-relevant CCS of railways which were considered neither for road-side nor for on-board systems so far. Logging implementations, such as the common juridical recorder on vehicles, can no longer be realized as a central component of a single manufacturer. All centralized approaches are in question. The research project RailChain is funded by the mFUND program and gives practical evidence that distributed consensus protocols are a proper means to immutably (for legal purposes) store state information of many system components from multiple manufacturers. The results of RailChain have been published, prototypically implemented, and experimentally evaluated in large-scale field tests on the advanced TrainLab. At the same time, the project showed how RailChain can be integrated into the road-side and on-board architecture given by OCORA and EULYNX. Logged data can now be analysed sooner and also their trustworthiness is being increased. This enables, e.g., auditable predictive maintenance, because it is ensured that data is authentic and unmodified at any point in time.

Abschlussbericht

RailChain

Johannes Dittmann

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