Real-time predication of railway track curvature using gyroscope and GPS sensors

Track curvature plays a significant role in vehicle-track dynamics and serves as a critical parameter for active control systems in rail vehicles. Hence, real-time prediction of track curvature holds immense importance for vehicle operators. This paper presents an experimental study that utilizes gyroscope and GPS sensors to predict track curvature. Two methods, namely the Gyro method and the GPS method, are proposed. In the Gyro method, the track curvature is determined as the ratio of the carbody yaw rate to the running velocity, while the GPS method calculates the curvature based on the vehicle’s trajectory. The results indicate that the Gyro method, exhibiting less noise, outperforms the GPS method in terms of precision.