Distributed Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Control for High-Speed Trains Based on a Multi-Body Dynamics Model

The safe and efficient operation of high-speed trains is highly dependent on the reliability of their actuation systems, where actuator faults and input saturation pose significant challenges to control performance. Existing centralized control strategies often lack the flexibility to handle asymmetric actuator degradation and saturation across different carriages. To overcome this limitation, this paper leverages the inherent distributed structure of a train consist and proposes an distributed adaptive fault-tolerant control (DAFTC) scheme based on a multi-body dynamics model. The controller is designed at the carriage level to explicitly handle unknown actuator faults, input saturation, and parametric uncertainties. It incorporates an adaptive law for online parameter estimation and a second-order auxiliary system—a dynamic compensator—to mitigate saturation effects. Simulation results demonstrate the controller’s effectiveness in achieving accurate dual-loop tracking of both speed and position. Quantitative comparisons show that the proposed method reduces the average speed and position-tracking errors to 0.021 km/h and 0.426 m, respectively, outperforming conventional centralized approaches.