Low-Cost Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Approach for Semiactive Suspension Control of High-Speed Trains

Abstract

Excessive vertical and lateral motion of the train body could endanger the operation safety of a high-speed train. The situation is further complicated if actuation faults occur. This paper investigates a semiactive approach for suppressing such motions. By using the structural properties of the system model, a new control scheme is proposed to account for various factors such as input nonlinearities, actuator failures, and external disturbances in the system simultaneously. The resultant control scheme is capable of automatically generating the intermediate control parameters and literally producing the PD-like controller—the whole process does not require precise information on system model or system parameter. Furthermore, unlike traditional PD control, the proposed one has the stability-guaranteed algorithms to self-adjust its PD gains and there is no need for human tuning or trial and error process. Such user-friendly feature is deemed favorable for practical implementation. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is tested using computer simulations in the presence of parametric uncertainties and varying operation conditions.