Author(s)

A Piga-Carboni, A Pisano & E Usai

Abstract

The control of the contact force between the catenary and the pantograph collector end is one of the main requirements for increasing the efficiency of high-speed-train transportation systems. Indeed, the equivalent stiffness of the catenary is not constant, and it can cause variation of the contact force, up to the complete loss of contact, so reducing the performance. In this paper we consider the equivalent stiffness of the catenary as an uncertainty to compensate for, and the use of a robust, nonlinear, output-feedback scheme is proposed. Under the hypothesis of knowing the actual contact force, the application to an asymmetric pantograph of a robust observer/controller scheme, based on high-gain differentiators and on a second-order sliding mode controller, is considered, and verified by simulation. The contact force results to be very close to the desired value in various operating conditions.

Keywords