Mechatronic solutions for high-speed railway vehicles

This paper presents recent developments in the study of active steering for railway wheels. It demonstrates the potential benefits from this form of active control and studies what could be achieved when modern control techniques are used on the vehicles via mechatronic components. The study is based on a mechanically simplified vehicle and active control strategies for three wheelset/wheel-pair configurations are studied, which are solid axle wheelset, independently rotating wheelset and directly steered wheel pairs. Various mechatronic vehicle configurations are discussed and different control schemes are presented. Two key performance requirements, i.e. the curving performance of the wheelset and ride quality of the vehicle, are assessed for all proposed schemes. Finally, actuation requirement is also investigated.