The Multifunction Vehicle Bus (MVB) is a field bus for data communication within a consist (e.g., a railway vehicle or closed train) and is used for the centralized drive control or decentralized control of air conditioning, toilet systems, passenger information systems (PIS), door controls, brakes and more. MVB has been standardized by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in standard IEC 61375. The International Union of Railways (UIC) provides further specifications regarding MVB in UIC leaflet 556. The MVB transmits time-critical control signals in real time (typical cycle times between 16 to 512 ms and a fixed data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbit/s). The MVB is widely used for single-Master-to-multi-Slave communication, where the Master frame defines the timeslot in which each Slave sends its frame. With Speedgoat MVB I/O modules, you can easily handle messages and perform closed-loop controls and hardware-in-the-loop simulations using MATLAB® and Simulink®.
There are three different transmission media for MVB: Electrical Middle Distance (EMD, > 200 m), Electrical Short Distance (ESD, 20 m – 200 m) and Optical Glass Fibre (OGF, available on request).