Catenary emulation for hardware-in-the-loop pantograph testing with a model predictive energy-conserving control algorithm

Pantograph current collectors, especially for high-speed trains, need to ensure safe contact with the catenary under stringent requirements on the dynamic contact force. A novel, high-dynamic pantograph test rig with accurate virtual catenary emulation is presented that allows for efficient, realistic, and reproducible testing. The complex dynamics of the pantograph/catenary interaction is modeled by a realtime-capable distributed-parameter description in moving coordinates. The proposed test rig controller incorporates model-predictive impedance control to match the desired catenary dynamics. Additionally, it keeps the exchange of the conserved quantities energy and momentum between the real pantograph and the virtual catenary consistent to increase physical trustworthiness of the results, even in high-dynamic test scenarios. The proposed methods are experimentally validated on the full-scale pantograph test rig. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.