Dealing with traction/braking failures in high speed trains via virtual parameter based adaptive fault-tolerant control method

This paper presents an automated control scheme for high speed trains with combined longitudinal aerodynamics and tracking/braking dynamics. Synthesized using the so-called virtual parameter based backstepping adaptive control method, the resultant control scheme exhibits several salient features: 1) the inherent coupling effects are taken into account as a result of combining both longitudinal aerodynamics and traction/ braking dynamics; 2) fully parameter independent control algorithms are derived; and 3) closed-loop tracking stability of the overall system is ensured under unpredictable traction/ braking failures. The effectiveness of the developed control scheme is authenticated via a formative mathematical analysis based on Lyapunov stability theory and also validated via numerical simulations.