Online distributed cooperative model predictive control of energy-saving trajectory planning for multiple high-speed train movements

• An online distributed cooperative control approach for multiple high-speed train trajectories planning is proposed.
• The approach relies on exchanging of staged decision-making information among all high-speed trains.
• The energy-saving object is achieved using redundancy trip time through tuning ACO’s heuristic information parameter.

The cooperative energy-efficient trajectory planning for multiple high-speed train movements is considered in this paper. We model all the high-speed trains as the agents that can communicate with others and propose a local trajectory planning control model using the Model Predictive Control (MPC) theory. After that we design an online distributed cooperative optimization algorithm for multiple train trajectories planning, under which each train agent can regulate the trajectory planning procedure to save energy using redundancy trip time through tuning ACO’s heuristic information parameter. Compared to the existing literature, the vital distinctions of our work lies not only on the online cooperative trajectory planning but also on the distributed mechanism for multiple high-speed trains. Experimental studies are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods with the practical operational data of Wuhan-Guangzhou High-speed Railway in China.