This paper presents a susceptibility study of an IEEE 802.11n communication network in an electromagnetic (EM) environment representative of the railway EM environment, which is characterized by the presence of transient EM interferences induced by the sliding contact between the pantograph and the catenary. In Europe, the ground-train communications are currently carried out by the GSM-R communication system, but the next generation of ground-train radio which could be based on OFDM solutions is already discussed. Then, we worked on the susceptibility of OFDM communication signals to the EM transient interferences which are systematically present in the railway EM environment. To achieve this susceptibility analysis, we select an IEEE 802.11n communication network and we analyzed its performances in the presence of transient EM interferences. The transient interferences present in the railway environment, were characterized in the literature as signals of short duration, variable period and broadband. Accordingly, the time interval between the successive transient signals and their time duration were used as main characteristics in order to study their impact on the achieved bit rate of the communications. A set of measurements was performed within a controlled environment to evaluate the performance of the IEEE 802.11n communication network in presence of such interference signals.

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As many other industrial environments, the railway electromagnetic environment is characterized by a large number of electromagnetic signals and disturbances. Among these, transient signals, with high energy level and wide frequency spectrum, represent an important threat to different signaling subsystems. In this paper, a new methodology dedicated to the detection and the characterization of the transient disturbances is presented. Based on a flexible and adjustable time-frequency analysis, this methodology is used to evaluate the impact of transient disturbances on a ground-to-train radio communication. A test bench was developed in order to validate the results of this evaluation.

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