Dynamic response and robust control of coupled maglev vehicle and guideway system

This study develops a computational model of the dynamic characteristics of the actively controlled, magnetically levitated (maglev) system moving on a flexible guideway. The 5-dof (degree-of-freedom) vehicle model, the modeling of the EMS (electromagnetic suspension), guideway, and guideway irregularity are described, respectively. In this sense, the dynamic response of a coupled vehicle and guideway system is investigated with different vehicle speeds and masses. Furthermore, the formulation of SMC (sliding mode control) based on the Kalman filter is addressed for the control of the dynamic response of the maglev system for various prescribed running speeds. For numerical simulation, the Runge–Kutta method is used to solve the state-space equation, which includes information about the vehicle, guideway and controller. The results reveal that both the air gap fluctuation and the cabin CG (center of gravity) vertical acceleration are strongly affected by the vehicle speed and guideway irregularity, but only slightly affected by the vehicle mass. Moreover, SMC based on the Kalman filter considerably reduces the air gap fluctuation and cabin CG vertical acceleration responses, and the efficiency of the adopted control methodology is demonstrated even at higher critical speed conditions.