Software, Cyber & Digital Transformation

In line with Network Rail’s “Digital Railway Transformation” strategy, we are gearing up our capabilities and capacity to focus on Next Generation, Smart, Digital Transformation solutions for Rail. Our aim is to be future proof in new skills which are slowly permeating the rail industry from automotive, to enhance safety, reliability and operational efficiencies for all key players involved in the engineering, design, production, validation, operation and maintenance of the rolling stock and infrastructure solutions.

Below is a quick glance at our major service offerings in the Software, Cyber and Digital domain:

Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) and Simulation

We have experts in MBSE who can transform the way functional requirements are elicited. With proven MBSE techniques for holistic requirements elicitation, analysis and management our experts are helping the industry shape up the future of the digitalisation in the railways. We offer expert guidance on selecting the right strategy, choosing the right tools, having the right processes for systems engineering or complex rolling stock and infrastructure signalling projects. Getting the requirements right is key to the success of critical projects and MBSE ensures that the end goal is demystified earlier in the development life cycle.

With Simulation of requirements, we can pave way for automated validation of requirements via modelling and simulation tools, to provide a base for generation of test vectors later.  Modelling requirements and generating functional models enables stakeholders to explore, evaluate and ensure what they are “building” is the right functionality. Once there are functional models, it is very efficient and effective to generate automated test vectors and validate the implemented functionality. This two-level verification and validation ensures the right things are being built and what is built is working as desired.

Software Assurance and Certification

Over the last couple of decades, software solutions have been introduced in many applications in the railway industry for Rolling Stock, Infrastructure and Fixed Installation. The need of software in safety related systems has steadily increased with more and more systems becoming smarter and digitalised.
AEGIS is supporting the railway industry to improve the quality of the software providing technical support throughout the software development life-cycle, trainings and independent reviews including independent software assessments and certification services.

Our technical experts actively participate in the software development and certification aspects of safety critical railway systems and we are proud to be associated with many prestigious projects in the recent years. Our experts have an in depth understanding of the CENELEC Software Safety standards and their application to a wide array of software based systems and solutions for the operational railway.

For more details visit our Software Service offers page: Software Services.

Cyber Security

The railway industry is facing one of the biggest changes in its history as the systems are getting more and more sophisticated, digitalised and interconnected. With the advancement in innovation, it makes products very flexible, but lead to newer types of weaknesses/vulnerabilities and risks that need to be analysed and mitigated as appropriate. Software and Cyber Security become fundamental pillars of the design of the systems that support current and future railway operations.

“Due to digitization and the need for more performance and better maintainability, previously isolated industrial systems are now connected to large networks and increasingly use standard protocols and commercial components. Because of this evolution, cybersecurity becomes a key topic for these industrial systems, including critical systems such as railway systems.“ – TS 50701:2021

AEGIS is helping the industry in protecting railway operations by providing technical support from policy and plan definition up to cyber security case preparation, trainings and independent services such as Cyber Security Independent Assessment and Independent reviews.

Our technical experts actively contributed to the creation of the CENELEC Technical Specification TS 50701 for Railway Applications.

AEGIS Cyber Security Team is qualified as an Independent Cyber Security Assessment Body and Independent Certification service, to ensure systems are compliant to cybersecurity standards, guidelines, procedures, and other codes of practice.

• We are supporting train operating companies and OEMs in their journey to have a secure operational railway, in line with the leading industry standards for cyber security like IEC 62443 series and TS 50701.
• Our service offerings include vulnerability analysis, threat modelling, and security risk assessment for ensuring the mitigation of identified threats.
• We conduct an overall security review of the operational aspects of the system to ensure compliance to cyber security standards.
• We also offer training to teams, enabling them to understand the nuances in the interpretation and implementation of the industry standards like IEC 62443 and TS 50701.

For more details visit our Cyber Security offers page: Cyber Security Services.

Cloud Based Digital Twins for Virtualisation

We also offer innovative solutions for enabling scalable, cloud based automated test platforms. We can put physical test labs on the cloud with virtualised simulated digital twins to recreate the physical test infrastructure. Virtualisation on the cloud has various benefits like scalability, remote access from anywhere, and the team can create clones with different configurations to provide more volume of automated testing across various configurations of the products and de-risk the end goal.

With a modular, flexible architecture, our cloud-based test platform can cover a wide array of functionalities and the simulated components can mimic any product within the entire gamete of the rail industry (both on-board rolling stock and infrastructure side).

The multiple levels of V&V can be repeated as and when required to enhance coverage, quality and ROI. Fault injection tests and automated asset monitoring and management can also be included to test for anomalous behaviour, and there is scope to integrate with other AI based, machine learning systems as well.

AEGIS Certification Services which is our independent, sister company – can certify and validate this cloud-based test platform to enable formal validation.

Data Analytics & AI based solutions

With a deep understanding of the software, data and the railway domain, at AEGIS we pride ourselves in being able to apply our unique blend of expertise to help the industry leaders in using the terrabytes of data generated from various sub-systems / fleets to enhance reliability and operational efficiencies. We have custom built data analytics and predictive maintenance solutions which can integrate seamlessly with existing legacy systems in a non-disruptive manner.

We specialise in the number crunching of the data to analyse and identify specific patterns of performance and reliability in order to assist in intelligent decision making for operators.

Comprehensive Service Offering Portfolio

With a team of about 45 seasoned rail domain experts, we understand the challenges in the engineering, design, development, verification, validation and homologation of both rolling stock and the infrastructure systems and components.

Here is a brief snapshot of our portfolio:

Watch some of our short videos below, to find out more about what we do…