Optimal digital computer control of cascaded vehicles in high-speed transportation systems in the presence of measurement noise and stochastic input disturbances.

A simple, continuous-time model is derived for a high-speed transportation system in which the vehicles can be considered as a cascade of individually powered units. This model is linearized to represent the system behaviour about a desired operating condition and a discrete-time form on this linear model is computed. Optimal digital controllers are then derived using Kalman's dynamic programming formulation. The behaviour of the optimal, computer-controlled system is then examined when stochastic input disturbances and measurement noise are introduced into the model.