Research on the stability of virtual coupling train formation based on a PID controller under the influence of time delay

Abstract

Abstract As the latest research direction of train-to-train communication, virtual coupling train formation technology has attracted the attention of many scholars. This paper studies the influence of time delay on the formation of virtual coupled trains. We proposed a distributed PID controller, which means that trains can still form a stable fleet operation under the influence of communication delay and control delay. After modelling and analysis, the research uses Matlab to conduct simulation, involving two sets of experiments. Factors including speed, acceleration, position, position error, expected distance between adjacent trains and actual distance between adjacent trains are simulated. The results demonstrate that the distributed PID controller can effectively control the impact of time delay on the virtual coupling fleet.