Control system studies of an active anti-roll bar tilt system for railway vehicles

This paper describes a theoretical study of an active anti-roll bar tilt control system for a railway vehicle. It presents the rationale behind body tilting, the advantages and disadvantages associated with body tilting and the key tilt control system requirements. The paper also describes the control modelling process and presents some simulation results from control system studies. A number of competing control systems have been designed and analysed, including both classical and optimal control strategies. The performance of the control systems for a variety of curves is considered, as well as their response to track irregularities. The results show that all the strategies provide good tilting performance, the optimal control approach being marginally better.