Advanced Control Strategies for Tilting Railway Vehicles

This paper presents the findings of the first stage of a fundamental study of the tilt control problem. A tilting railway vehicle is described via appropriate modelling and a frequency domain analysis illustrates the problems associated with straightforward feedback control. A Kalman-Bucy filter is developed based on 3 inertial measurements (body lateral acceleration, roll and yaw rate) to provide a more effective feedback signal. The filter is re-formulated to estimate not only the states but also the cant, cant rate and curve radius of the track on which the vehicle is travelling. Then a controller is developed based on the estimator ‘true’ cant deficiency output. The performance of the estimator and of the controller is assessed via appropriate computer simulations.