Multi-train operation simulation in an interactive virtual environment

초록

Virtual reality technology has shown many advantages when it has been applied to present the contents of other technology owing to the visualization capability of objects even before the entities are manufactured or constructed. In this work, we suggested a development strategy of a simulator to analyze the operation of conventional railway system. For this purpose, we designed computer-based simulation models of train, station, rail and railway operation system such as centralized traffic control (CTC), and automatic train protection (ATP) system as an agent, respectively, based on their functions. An integrated environment was developed to simulate railway operation in a virtual world. The simulation results are displayed on wide screen, in real time. The simulator has a merit of manual driving a train among running ones, which is an interactive graphic animation. This interactive operation has a distinguished advantage to the related other works as the developed simulator could include abnormal situation such as an accident that is not expected occurrence in normal operation. This paper suggests a development strategy of the simulator. We expect to use the simulator developing in the research as a tool for design and verification of scheduled railway system before the railway system is built.