Wayside Ultracapacitors Storage Design for Light Transportation Systems: a Multiobjective Optimization Approach.

In the paper a powerful technique based upon a multiobjective optimization is proposed in order to design stationary ultracapacitor storage devices, characterized by high energy density, for a rationale exploitation of the braking energy recovery, at the aim of improving the energy efficiency and the pantograph voltage profile. The methodological approach is able to determine the fundamental requirements of the storage device which is coupled to the transportation electrical network by a bidirectional dc-dc converter. The ability of the multiobjective optimization consists in treating contemporaneously several aspects in an integrated way. The reported simulations relative to a case study allow to confirm the intrinsic potentiality of this technique. In the last part of the paper some experimental results are also portrayed, with respect to a scale model simulator, in order to highlight the feasibility and the actual implementation of the proposed multiobjective optimization technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]