BRAKE CONTROLLER FOR A RAIL VEHICLE

A rail vehicle brake controller (100) receives a brake command (BC), and in response thereto, produces a master control signal (CTRL) that controls an electrically operated brake unit (140) to perform a braking operation. The brake controller (100) contains first and second control units (110; 120) and a gatekeeper unit (130). The first control unit (110) includes a processing circuitry (111) arranged to process the brake command (BC) to produce a first control signal (CTRL1) as a result of running a computer program on the processing circuitry (111). The second control unit (120) includes a state machine (121) arranged to take the brake command (BC) as an input state and produce a second control signal (CTRL2) as an output state resulting from said input state being fed into the state machine (121). The gatekeeper unit (130) receives the first and second control signals (CTRL1; CTRL2), and in response thereto, produces the master control signal (CTRL) if and only if the first and second control signals (CTRL1; CTRL2) fulfil an identity criterion. If the identity criterion is not fulfilled, the gatekeeper unit (130) produces no master control signal (CTRL).