Improvement of Steering Performance of a Two-axle Railway Vehicle via Look-up Tables Estimation

Abstract: A conceptual design of an innovative two-axle lightweight railway vehicle for commuter services is carried out at KTH Railway Group. An active wheelset steering is introduced to improve the curving performance of the vehicle, which is one of the critical performance requirements. This thesis aims to improve the steering performance of the active wheelset steering. Look-up tables for estimating time-varying wheel-rail contact parameters are introduced to supervise a simple PID controller of the active steering system in order to improve steering performance. The look-up table (LUT) estimation is focused on time-varying wheel-rail contact parameters, including creep coefficients and contact patch variables due to their direct influence on curving performance and lateral stability of the wheelset. As a result, the estimated longitudinal unit creep forces (UCF) have the potential to supervise the gains determination of PID controller because it can appropriately distinguish running conditions. The estimation of longitudinal UCF is achieved by the combination of the results from the LUT of creep coefficients and the LUT of contact patch variables. The result from longitudinal unit creep force estimation is shifted to the first quadrant to use as critical gain in the Ziegler-Nichols tuning method for the PID controller. The critical oscillation period for PID tuning can be expressed as a function of vehicle speed. Consequently, the PID controller for the active steering system uses time-varying gains with real-time tuning. The proposed control system for active wheelset steering is validated with nine running conditions using SIMPACK and MATLAB/Simulink co-simulation. The proposed control system provides a stable wheelset lateral displacement control regardless of the running condition. The active steering system significantly reduces wheel-rail wear, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed active steering system.