Robustness of Active Control Strategies for Railway Wheelset

Mei, TX; Li, Hong

Abstract

This paper presents a fundamental analysis on the control design for active wheelset control and studies the dependency of different control strategies on condition changes in vehicle speed and wheel-rail interface. Changes in vehicle speed are an important factor for consideration as it closely influences the dynamic properties of railway wheelset and it is not clear an active controller tuned at one particular speed would also best suited for other speeds, whilst the robustness again variations at the wheel-rail interface is also a key design requirement. The primary focus of the study is concerned with the stability control. Three different active control strategies (active yaw damping, active lateral damping and sky-hook stiffness) are investigated and assessed against the variations in vehicle speed and wheel-rail interactions.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: The 29th IAVSD International Symposium on Dynamics of Vehicles on Roads and Tracks
• Start Date: Aug 18, 2025
• End Date: Aug 22, 2025
• Acceptance Date: Mar 27, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jun 15, 2025
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Article Number: 060
• Keywords: Active control, railway vehicles, robustness, primary suspensions