Energy-saving and Punctuality Combined Velocity Planning for the Autonomous-Rail Rapid Tram with Enhanced Pseudospectral Method

Abstract Autonomous-rail Rapid Transit (ART) is a new medium-capacity rapid transportation system with punctuality, comfort, convenience, but low-cost construction. Combined velocity planning is a critical approach to meet the requirements of energy-saving and punctuality. An ART velocity pre-planning and re-planning strategy based on the combination of dynamic programming (DP) and pseudospectral (PS) method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the longitudinal dynamics model of ART is established by a multi-particle model. Secondly, the DP algorithm with global optimal characteristics is adopted as the pre-planning strategy. A model for determining number of the optimal collocation points of the real-time PS method is proposed to improve the energy-saving effect while ensuring the computation efficiency. Then the enhanced PS method is utilized to design the velocity re-planning strategy. Finally, simulations are conducted in typical scenario with sloping roads, traffic lights, and intrusive of pedestrian. The simulation results indicate that the ART with the proposed velocity trajectory optimization strategy can meet the punctuality requirement, and obtain better economy efficiency compared with the constant speed strategy.