The use of wheelmotors to provide active steering and guidance for a light rail vehicle

Whilst conventional, rigid axle railway wheelsets are inherently simple, reliable and relatively inexpensive, they have well known limitations with regard to the competing requirements of steering and stability. A wide range of mechanical and mechatronic solutions have been proposed to overcome these limitations and to allow near-radial steering in sharp curves. This paper discusses some considerations in the design and development of wheelmotor active steering technology for light rail vehicles (LRVs), where each wheel incorporates a traction motor which can be driven independently of the other. This arrangement is considered to have some advantages over similar mechatronic approaches which use actuators in the primary longitudinal / yaw suspension.