TELWIND unites a strong complimentary team of renowned European companies and research institutions, which join forces to develop a revolutionary integrated floating offshore system. The concept, which has already undergone trial tank testing with overly positive results, shall enable a radical cost reduction both in terms of material usage and required means and operations. The system has been conceived in a holistic approach to the overall substructure, tower and turbine, generating ground breaking synergies between the integrated elements to specifically address the particular requirements of offshore wind, focusing in the capacity for low-cost industrialization in the inshore construction and offshore installation processes. The Telwind concept integrates a novel floating substructure and a pioneer self-erecting telescopic tower. The former provides all the performance advantages of a spar-buoy substructure while allowing for qualitatively lower material usage, the latter enables a full onshore preassembly of the overall system and a highly beneficial reduction of offshore works and auxiliary means. Together they overcome the limitations imposed by the available inshore infrastructure and offshore heavylift vessels, and thus generate a fully scalable system, perfectly fitted for the effective integration of the next generation of extremely large (10MW+) offshore wind turbines which are key to enhance the reduction of the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE). The system will also profit from the proven structural efficiency and economy of precast concrete, a material particularly well suited for low-cost industrialized production of repetitive units. Robust, reliable and virtually maintenance-free marine constructions result, reducing OPEX costs, greatly increasing durability and fatigue tolerance, and setting the ground for extended service life of the infrastructure, which could further magnify the system’s capacity for drastic reduction of the LCOE.

VICE4RAIL aims to accelerate the adoption of EGNSS for deploying efficient, resilient, and competitive ERTMS solutions. Focus is on the development of a certification and standardization process for the use of EGNSS, closing the gaps for rail safety critical applications and converging towards a pan-European EGNSS-based solution for ERTMS and its global roll-out. The starting point is the use of EGNOS V2 and the Balise virtualisation – as indicated by the European Parliament directive on July 2021 – opening the way for further applications based on the absolute train positioning and EGNOS V3. Two major developments will be undertaken: identification of suitable certification procedures compliant with the CENELEC norms and realization of a Hybrid Virtualized Testing Certification Environment based on the zero-on-site testing paradigm with the construction of a dedicated testing facility on a RFI’s railway lines where GNSS-based multisensor positioning solutions can be evaluated and certified in operational scenarios. This unique testing environment will be connected with the ERTMS accredited laboratory of CEDEX to assess the end-to-end performance of the ERTMS chain with GNSS-based positioning devices in operational scenarios. Behaviour of the system under GNSS signals that include faults very rare and difficult to experience field but with a potential high impact on safety, can be evaluated avoiding extensive and not exhaustive field tests. VICE4RAIL will exploit the synergies with the Pilot Line Novara – Rho funded by RFI to integrate GNSS positioning into the ERTMS and the Shift2Rail GATE4Rail project that introduced the zero-on-field virtual testing for GNSS. Furthermore, thanks to SNCF, CEDEX, RFI and SOGEI a liaison will be established with the Europe’s Rail R2DATO project to complement their on-going activities and sharing results and assets and with the RTCM SC 134 Special Committee that is completing the standardization process for GNSS receivers for rail.

GNSS Automated Virtualized Test Environment for Rail (GATE4Rail) deals with tasks TD2.4 and TD2.6 of the Shift2Rail Multi Annual Action Plan with the goals to: i) achieve a realistic characterization of the GNSS in the railways environment assessing the performance and properties of typical fail-safe train positioning components in nominal and fault conditions; ii) implement a common test process framework for zero on-site testing to minimizing cost and time. GATE4RAIL will implement a geo-distributed simulation and verification platform connecting GNSS centres of excellence, and ERTMS/ETCS laboratories to evaluate the GNSS performances in the railway environment with agreed methodologies and tools. This approach offers the advantage to stress the global system in presence of very rare fault events instead of long and expensive tests on field, developing a standard methodology for representative test cases. GATE4RAIL will develop methodology and tools for an automated update of tests, through Model-Based System Engineering philosophy to ensure that the simulation infrastructure can be maintained and extended reducing the need for re-assessments to increasing the test environment efficiency. The entire process will be reviewed by an independent Notified Body already engaged on GNSS assessment for rail applications and a demo on railway line in Italy and Spain is included. GATE4RAIL’s team is very competent bringing together expertise on the GNSS and rail sectors necessary for the exploitation of GNSS that is one of the Game changer of the ERTMS.