Control System in Battery-Charging Regime for Autonomous Locomotives

This paper is focused on a two stages control system for charging the battery of an autonomous locomotive. The existing traction inverter which operates as boost rectifier and a specific control strategy ensure unity power factor at the point of connection to the power supply. In the first stage, until an imposed value of the state of the charge is reached, a constant DC charging current is ensured. In the second stage, the charging at DC constant voltage finalizes the charging process of the battery. The synthesis of the parallel control system provides the parameters of both controllers involved (the voltage and current controllers). The proper design of the control system is validated by the simulation results. In addition, the good performance of the system (unity power factor, low harmonic distortion factor and high efficiency) is proved.