Use of inverse dynamics in the development of tilt control strategies for rail vehicles

SUMMARY This paper presents a technique for the development of control strategies for tilting trains. If control laws when tilting the vehicle are not closely adapted to the geometrical characteristics of the track layout, a loss of ride quality will appear, creating travel sickness and tiredness in the passengers. The shape of the command signal and the time that the actuation must be anticipated to the curve entrance are essential factors in the vehicle transient response. This paper shows how the Inverse Dynamics method can be used to define a control strategy to overcome the previously mentioned problems. A vehicle model is used which represents a two-bogie tilting passenger car equipped with an active hydraulic system for body tilting. By means of Inverse Dynamics, the command signals for the actuators and the anticipation time have been calculated. Experimental work, which has also been carried out with a conventional two-bogie passenger car equipped with an hydraulic tilting system, is also presented.