Realtime-capable FE-based railway catenary emulation via pantograph test rig impedance control

摘要

This work shows novel results of emulating railway catenary dynamics on a test rig for pantograph testing in order to provide for virtual test rides of railway pantograph current collectors under laboratory conditions. A realtime-capable finite-element model of a railway catenary is formulated efficiently in moving coordinates. An advanced test rig impedance control architecture is adopted for the finite-element model structure, and detailed simulations of an existing full-size pantograph test rig are carried out. The high fidelity of the realtime catenary model as well as the emulation performance of the closed-loop test rig setup in contact with a pantograph model provides promising results for the future implementation of the simulation/control architecture on the test rig hardware.