A 6U VMEbus system powered by a 300MHz MPC8245 ESM™ Embedded System Module, MEN's system-on-module standard, is the basis for this automated train control application. As driverless underground systems are becoming more and more important in public mass transport from an economical and organizational point of view, the demand for adequate mass transport solutions is rapidly increasing, especially in the growing markets in Asia, like China or India. But new underground lines in Europe are also being more and more often operated by new driverless trains. Besides the safe and quick transport of thousands of people with trains that stop at the station precise to the centimeter without interaction of a driver, driverless trains can also be optimized in speed and energy consumption.

ESM™ Embedded System Modules are complete computers on a plug-on module. They consist of the hardware (CPU, chip set, memory, I/O) which is not fixed to any application-specific function, and an FPGA programmed in VHDL code, which provides I/O that is also still independent of a specific application. Two Fast Ethernets and two COMs are already implemented on the ESM™. In this case all other I/O connectivity is realized on an ESM™ carrier board in 6U VMEbus format that has been developed by the customer himself. The additional functionality is implemented by means of IP cores in the FPGA. The SRAM controller which is for example implemented in the FPGA transfers data between the ESM™ module and the VMEbus carrier board.