Model-based development of an automatic train operation component for communication based train control

In recent years, there has been a significant development in the world of conventional and/or urban railway systems. The evolution of technologies is leading to deployment of new signaling and control systems, including the Communication-Based Train Control widespread primarily in metro network. Strengths of this technology are continuous bi-directional communication track to train, so as to provide timely information on the status of the train and the line, but especially the possibility of implementing automatic guidance through the ATO (Automatic Train Operation). ATO manages the running of the train by adjusting traction and braking according to safety limits, but replaces the driver also in other operations such as opening-closing doors or the initialization of the train. In this article, we describe the development of an ATO system by adopting a Model Driven Approach that aims to increase the coherence between the analysis and the implementation phase. The main blocks of the system were modeled with the UML notation, starting from the functional requirements, while to show their behavior were used statecharts. At the end a testing activity was performed for the verification and validation of the whole model in order to demonstrate the properties of consistency, completeness and correctness.