Add Train Real-time Data Protocol (TRDP)

[James@Siemens]

I know this was asked three years ago, but TRDP was fairly new back in 2017 and is becoming more in use in the rail industry.

As we are going to be moving away from Multifunction Vehicle Bus (MVB) networks over to TRDP, we need a solution to continue lab testing our software using LabView to simulate a vehicle interacting with a control unit using TRDP.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

Previous 2017 request was declined for lack of interest, but rather than close this as a duplicate, I will recommend NI to leave it open as it is a developing spec that may garner more interest today.

Relevant information from the previous request:

Train Real-time Data Protocol (TRDP) supports the increasing network requests on board of trains and railways. For more information:

https://sourceforge.net/p/tcnopen/trdp/923/tree/trunk/trdp/doc/TCN-TRDP2-D-BOM-011-18%20-%20TRDP%20U...

[Teuz87]

Any news about the TRDP protocol in LabVIEW? I have to use the TRDP for a project and it would be really useful if there was a set of standard VIs for the TRDP protocol.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

Teuz87: It is not anywhere on our roadmap for the next three years. If you develop a set of VIs and want to share it with others, NI does have resources to help you develop it into a sharable library (through the LabVIEW Tools Network). But I doubt you'll see any standard library from NI. The protocol's use does not seem to overlap the industries we most target.

[huntersoa.gm]

We also use TRDP at work. Several large companies are using it for communication and native support would be appreciated. 

We have some internal versions of it already, unfortunately, we can not share it. 

Also, several of NI's customers do use TCN. Just to name a few: 

Alstom

CAF

Siemens

Toshiba

Duagon

Skoda

Knorr-Bremse

Vossloh

Etc. If you look up the supporting companies page on TCN open there are 81 companies already listed. I am fairly certain there are hundreds of developers who need this to be supported. 

[wiebe@CARYA]

>Etc. If you look up the supporting companies page on TCN open there are 81 companies already listed. I am fairly certain there are hundreds of developers who need this to be supported. 

So, why not collect funding to pay for creation of a library?

[huntersoa.gm]

That is not the issue. Also, it is really "expensive" to maintain it and update it to track changes. TRDP should be supported by NI and should not be implemented by every company and every department on their own. It is getting more and more widespread use in the train industry and other supporting areas as well.

Saying that it is not supported is close to saying CAN is not supported as it is not used widely enough.

My reply was targeted at this comment: “The protocol's use does not seem to overlap the industries we most target.”

It does in fact, overlap.

[wiebe@CARYA]

> My reply was targeted at this comment: “The protocol's use does not seem to overlap the industries we most target.”

It does in fact, overlap.

Probably the overlap is (too) small, compared to other industries NI targets.

Of course creating and maintaining such a library is expensive. It will be expensive for NI too.

Personally, I think a library made by a company that is actually in the field of the library has a much higher change of succeeding...

And I'd also like NI to focus on what only they can do: develop LabVIEW.

I'm sure we're not going to agree on this 🙄...

[huntersoa.gm]

We do - I wish they'd do a lot more, though 😄 But it is up for debate on other idea threads. There are several really nice recommendations waiting in the purgatory of NI to be implemented. 

I'd also love a public version shared by someone. As I said, we can not share ours... Company property and what not.... But a good TRDP module would be really appreciated in our industry for sure.

[wiebe@CARYA]

GCentral has started a sort of kickstarter for LabVIEW projects, G Idea Exchange (gcentral.org). The idea is to post a project there, and a budget will be estimated. Once the budget is raised (by public funding), the idea will be executed by a (TBD) contractor. AFAIK, When completed, the project will be open sourced. 

[huntersoa.gm]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention! I'll add the idea as soon as I can. Unfortunately, they use Google drive for the proposals - and all google services are blocked on my work laptop. But I'll pitch the idea when I get home. I'll also try to pitch the idea to support this endeavor at my superiors.