A NOVEL CONTROL STRATEGY FOR ACTIVE STEERING OF RAILWAY BOGIES

This paper presents a novel active steering strategy for railway bogies to improve performances on track curves. The vehicle configuration and requirements of wheelset steering on curves are explained. It then presents the design of a controller to control the attack angles and lateral deflections of the wheelsets such that the desired steering conditions are met. The controller is based on the measurement of forces or deflections of the primary suspensions. To assess the robustness of the controller, parameter variations and nonlinearities in the system are considered. The simulation results are given to show that the proposed steering strategy can significantly improve the vehicle performance on curves.