Problem:     The 2000 summer games in Sydney spawned a massive overhaul of the commuter rail system. This included upgrading the car's electronics. Our customer was selected to provide new door control electronics as well as a new automated voice message system that would allow computer controlled voice messages to be played across the intercom. An additional requirement was that the system needed to retrofit into the existing car wiring.

Solution:     Group Alpha designed a combined door control/intercom system which communicates over either the DC voltage rail provided within the car, or alternatively, across the audio twisted pair cabling. The system consists of a master controller located in the driver's cab connected to a system of car controllers that are located within each of the cars. The master controller has mass storage for storing the various audio messages and makes the decisions about what message to play based on the train location. It also has the network management responsibility to keep track of what car controllers are actually connected on the network since the train configurations changed multiple times during the service day.

The individual car controllers provide the interfacing to the door position sensors, and the door actuators as well as the providing a customer response system which consists of the intercom system and "Help" buttons which are located at various strategic locations within the car.

This was a very aggressively scheduled project with the contract being let on March 1st and Group Alpha finishing the car integration and system qualification in Sydney mid-July of the same year.