Output feedback control of pantograph-catenary system with adaptive estimation of catenary parameters

With the increasing railway vehicle speed, pantograph-catenary (PAC) system has become an important part as its incidents still stand among the principal causes of railway traffic interruption. Indeed, when a rail vehicle moves, the pantograph should constantly press against the underside of the catenary. Nonetheless, it is difficult to get around the complexity of the physical interaction between the pantograph and the contact wire, which could deteriorate the quality of the electricity transfer. Thus, PAC system performances could dramatically be reduced because of bad current collection. Therefore, in this paper, we present an output feedback solution in order to design an active control of PAC system. The proposed solution is based on the backstepping control and an adaptive observer that estimates both the (unknown) catenary parameters and the system state. All synthesis steps are given and the closed-loop analysis shows asymptotic tracking behavior regardless of the time-varying catenary stiffness. Furthermore, a numerical example shows that the PAC contact can be regulated with desired effect. © The Author(s) 2015.