On May 29, the “Construction of the Digital reflection Vehicle-to-ground Remote Data Linkage Laboratory”, a critical component of one of CHN Energy’s ten major sci-tech projects—“Research and Application of Heavy-Haul Train Group Operation and Control System Technology”—passed pre-acceptance review organized by the China Railway Society, marking a major breakthrough in China’s equipment testing, simulation, and system validation for heavy-haul train group operation and control.

Jointly built by China Shenhua, China Railway Signal & Communication Co., Ltd., and Central South University, the laboratory has overcome key technical challenges including remote distributed power control of trains with double-headed locomotives, vehicle-to-ground autonomous joint coordination and control, and cross-domain safety control of heavy-haul train group, and established China’s first platform that provides multi-level, multi-dimensional, long-distance twin-linkage, resource-complementary simulation testing, enhancing the efficiency and reliability of China’s heavy-haul railway group control technology development, as well as offering a new feasible simulation platform for equipment R&D that covers railway operation, train control, communication and dispatching for heavy-haul railways, high-speed railways, and urban transit systems.

By creating virtual operation scenarios tightly mapped to real operation conditions under digital twin technology, the laboratory can optimize heavy-haul train group control strategies and enable simulations of complex scenarios including multi-train coordination and emergency braking, significantly reducing R&D costs and shortening the cycles. The innovative long-distance data linkage architecture breaks traditional geographic limitations of laboratories and facilitates resource sharing and advantage complementarity, substantially improving cross-regional collaborative R&D efficiency.

Currently, based on Baoshen Railway’s “9 stations and 8 sections” test segment, the laboratory is integrating cutting-edge technologies including high-safety, high-precision fusion localization, autonomous collaborative control of train, and trusted transmission of vehicle-to-ground data. By simulating complex working conditions including extreme weather conditions and equipment faults, it continuously refines system functions and control strategies, accelerating the transformation of heavy-haul railway group operation and control technology from theory to application.