Active Steering Control for Railway Bogies based on Displacement Measurements

This paper presents an active steering control strategy that improves the performance of rail vehicles on track curves. The control scheme is developed to explore the usually symmetrical arrangement of bogie suspensions such that only simple and practical sensors are needed. The vehicle configuration and requirements of wheelset steering on curves are explained, before the detailed control design is described and the performance is assessed. To examine the robustness of the controller, parameter variations and nonlinearities in the system are considered. Simulation results are given to show that the proposed steering strategy can achieve the desired steering conditions, and significantly reduce wear and noise at the wheel-rail interface and minimise tracking shifting forces.