Longitudinal Control Strategy Synthesis for Train Platoons Based on Priced Timed Game

The Virtual Coupling is a really innovative scenario for future railways, in which Platoons of trains are virtually-coupled via train-to-train communication, so drastically reducing their headways and increasing line capacity. In this paper, we present a priced time game-theoric approach to fulfill the string stable of the Train platoon, by considering the randomized effect of disturbances along the train string. Firstly, two-player timed games are modeled by a network of priced time game automata, thus, control strategies synthesis can be obtained using classical symbolic techniques. Secondly, an efficient on-the-fly algorithm has been proposed to solve games based on priced timed game automata with respect to reachability properties. Thirdly, various optimizations of the basic symbolic algorithm are proposed as well as methods for obtaining time-optimal winning strategies (for reachability games). Finally, the proposed approach is compared and evaluated by its application to the design of train control strategies for the constant spacing objective for four-train look-ahead communication topologies. Our experiments show that assurance of string stability can be guaranteed, and compared with PID control, trains' velocity variations are more synchronized and spacing error decreased a lot.