Control strategies for active steering of bogie-based railway vehicles

Abstract This paper investigates the improvement of the curving behaviour of conventional railway vehicles mounting bogies and solid wheelsets through active control. Various possible control goals are considered and implemented using optimal control techniques, and a comparative study of the performance of the different control strategies in an ideal deterministic track is carried out. Then suitable sensor types and locations are selected for each control strategy and results are obtained taking into account stochastic disturbances. The final comparison between strategies is made in terms of performance and feasibility of implementation.