Formation Control for Virtual Coupling Trains With Parametric Uncertainty and Unknown Disturbances

In this brief, a sliding mode control strategy is proposed to achieve the formation control for virtual coupling trains. Different from existing moving block based train control system, the headway between consecutive train sets is dynamically adjusted with respect to the velocity of the preceding train instead of just maintaining a large constant safe margin. By considering the uncertainty of the train model and external disruptions with unknown bound, the established formation control law can drive the position tracking error and the speed tracking error of the virtually coupled train sets to a predesigned sliding surface, and asymptotically converge to the equilibrium point. Meanwhile, estimations of the unknown train parameters and the bound of unknown external disturbances are derived on-line simultaneously. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.