Radiolabs has participated to Expo Ferroviaria 2025 taking place from September 30 to October 2, 2025, at Fiera Milano Rho in Milan, Italy. This exhibition, showcasing the latest innovations in the railway industry, has been an opportunity to unveil a software-defined, hybrid connectivity platform to fuelling a new era of smart, scalable, and secure communications including the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS).
FRMCS is the next-generation global communication standard for railways, developed by the International Union of Railways (UIC) to replace the aging GSM-R system. Unlike GSM-R, which is based on 2G technology, FRMCS is built on 5G principles, offering ultra-reliable, low latency, and high-bandwidth communication. It is not just a technical upgrade, it is the foundation for a fully digital, automated, and intelligent railway ecosystem.
The new project – based on the exploitation of Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satcom & 5G cellular networks – represents a follow-up of projects developed by Hitachi Rail and Radiolabs , including the S5LECT project, to provide infrastructure-less connectivity. In fact, the connected device landscape is changing fast, and legacy networks can’t keep up with the digitalisation of a sustainable ecosystem.
The result will be a Smart Platform powered by a set of core technologies and architectural principles designed to ensure flexibility, resiliency, technology’s independency and a reduction of dedicated equipments along the railways with the advantage of lower costs and CO2 emission:
- Use of AI/ML-driven control logic for intelligent multi-bearer routing, enabling dynamic selection and management of heterogeneous communication links and for realising the reference patterns for simulating the performance of the network in operational scenarios.
- Integration of Terrestrial Networks (4G/5G) and Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), including LEO satcom with the new Device-to-Device (D2D) services to ensure interoperability between different satcom networks and a direct connection between the trains and the Radio Block Center (RBC).
- Enhanced cybersecurity for the transition from wired networks (intrinsically secure) to wireless solutions (potentially vulnerable) by implementing authenticated encryption mechanisms with post-quantum cryptography and Blockchain.
- V2X technology for the connected and autonomous car.
Designed to last, because standardised 5G terrestrial and non-terrestrial systems will become more and more integrated, the new state-of-the-art platform will target three specific applications, capitalising the experience of Radiolabs on multi-bearer and V2X technologies:
- Migration to the FRMCS, offering a complementary solution to manage satellite and 5G connectivity for replacing the GSM-R infrastructure.
- Migration from wired to wireless, with an IoT secure and flexible access network for trackside fixed communications of the Smart Wayside Object Controllers (SWOCs).
- Connectivity for the autonomous Tram by leveraging on the V2X standard for the connected cars and the FRMCS principles.
Thanks to the new platform, the users can benefit from the huge investments to building LEO satellite networks to provide low-cost, low-latency connectivity to rural and underserved regions lacking terrestrial infrastructure or where ground-based systems are impractical. Among them, there is IRIS2 (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) the future constellation representing the European Union’s answer to pressing challenges ahead, offering enhanced communication capacities mainly to governmental users and critical infrastructures to closing the digital gap and give to Europe an independent telecom infrastructure as the Galileo system for the geo-localisation.
S5LECT – 5G & Satcom for Railways | Radiolabs
