Rail vehicle vibrations control using parameters adaptive PID controller

Abstract

In this study, vertical rail vehicle vibrations are controlled by the use of conventional PID and parameters which are adaptive to PID controllers. A parameters adaptive PID controller is designed to improve the passenger comfort by intuitional usage of this method that renews the parameters online and sensitively under variable track inputs. Sinusoidal vertical rail misalignment and measured real rail irregularity are considered as two different disruptive effects of the system. Active vibration control is applied to the system through the secondary suspension. The active suspension application of rail vehicle is examined by using 5-DOF quarter-rail vehicle model by using Manchester benchmark dynamic parameters. The new parameters of adaptive controller are optimized by means of genetic algorithm toolbox of MATLAB. Simulations are performed at maximum urban transportation speed (90 km/h) of the rail vehicle with ±5% load changes of rail vehicle body to test the robustness of controllers. As a result, superior performance of parameters of adaptive controller is determined in time and frequency domain. © 2014 Muzaffer Metin and Rahmi Guclu.