Energy-efficient operation of medium-speed maglev through integrated traction and train control

In contrast to the wheel-track trains, where the motor characteristics are considered a constant value, the motor characteristics of the medium-speed maglev (MSM) trains are the dependent variable of the position. This article studies the integration of traction power control and train control for the MSM to minimize energy consumption. First, an innovative integrated energy-efficient optimization model for MSM train control is constructed, considering the characteristics of the linear motors. Then, a multi-level dynamic programming (DP) approach, which includes the train operation simulation with the linear motor, is developed to solve the optimization problem. Furthermore, a speed-up strategy for the DP approach is proposed by a pre-calculated target train speed band (TTSB). The results of numerical experiments show that the DP approach yields a more practical train speed profile. In contrast, the DP approach with the TTSB strategy can achieve a better trade-off between solution accuracy and computational efficiency.