Design of complex controllers for active secondary suspensions on railway vehicles

Current control strategies for active suspensions are known to improve ride quality, but it is clear that further benefits will result from more sophisticated strategies which take a more integrated view of the vehicle and train dynamics. It is essential to be able to design active suspension controllers which deliver the extra benefits but are not impractically complex. This paper describes the design approach adopted, identifies a number of control strategies, and then gives a summary of the results for a number of complex active suspension control strategies. Matlab® is the primary design and simulation software package used in this study, but the controllers have also been validated with more complex models using the Vampire® software package, and comparative results are included.