Mechatronic Research and Development for Railway Vehicles

Kurzfassung

Road and rail have gone quite separate routes in their individual development because of their system-specific differences, both from the physical point of view as well as from the transport specification profiles. Today, however, electronics and controls are invading both road and rail systems with various speeds; the results range from simple add-ons to enhance designs which were originally mechanical, through advanced vehicle controls and onto truly mechatronic system concepts. Thsi paper concentrates on such developments in railways, but also points out some common issues in road and rail.