Novel Method for Energy Management for Catenary Free System Operation

In order to reduce the cost and visual impact of electrified railway lines, radical changes in infrastructure can be avoided by only removing the catenary wire. This can produce a significant saving in the overall cost of the railway network, reduce maintenance requirements and improve the overall visual impact. On-board energy storage systems have a significant role in providing the required energy during catenary free operation of trams, and in the recovery of regenerated energy from braking. It was found that a 13km journey can be achieved with a battery energy capacity of 39.6kWh with a rated voltage of 495V. Achieving an efficient train control, and optimising the energy management, can improve the energy efficiency of rapid transit systems. This paper presents a novel energy management phase driven method to perform state actions and control the transition between different operating energy supply modes for catenary free tram operation. The StateFlow environment is used to model the energy management, and has been implemented using ANSI C.