WESTECT II
Now that the second incarnation of WESTECT ATP is complete, I can return to my “normal” life.
Almost 7 years ago, Digressoft was asked by the head of Invensys Rail Australia (previously Westinghouse Rail Systems Australia) R&D to perform a feasibility study into a new generation of WESTECT. Several components of the current hardware were approaching obsolescence (a common hazard in high tech yet inherently conservative safety critical systems). After 2 years of report writing, platform investigation, estimating and client negotiations a contract was awarded to Invensys Rail for the development of WESTECT II. This time I was to perform more of a System Engineer / Technical Consultant role than the Software Engineering services supplied for the first WESTECT development project.
Activities performed for this project included:
- Requirements capture using DOORS and Synergy.
- Production of Requirement Specifications for several sub-systems to be developed by external suppliers.
- Negotiation and selection of external suppliers.
- Detailed design of on-board track map structures and assisting in the development of a stopping distance prediction algorithm using full train mass-distribution over changing gradients.
- Design of Safety Critical Data Preparation Sub-system.
- Complete development life cycle of Portable Transponder Reader Module using C# on the Windows CE platform.
- Complete development life cycle of Portable Radio Monitor using Delphi.