Passivity-based cruise control of high speed trains

Abstract

The cruise control problem of high speed trains (HSTs) is revisited in this paper. Despite the ongoing trend of using Lyapunov-based approaches, the concept of passivity is used as the basis of cruise controller design. To begin with, the Euler–Lagrange modeling of longitudinal motion of HST is introduced. Consequently, passivity properties of the system is investigated and it is shown that the system presents a strictly passive input–output map output. This property is utilized to design a controller based on an energy-shaping method. Since the controller benefits from the passivity property of the train, it is structurally simple and computationally efficient while ensuring asymptotic velocity tracking. In addition, as revealed in our robust analysis, the controller is capable of dealing with bounded perturbations. That is to say, boundedness of velocity tracking errors is guaranteed for sufficiently large control feedback gains. The obtained theoretical results have been verified by numerical simulation.