We develop a prototype hydraulic draft gear that has a function to control the coupler force. This device aimed at lowering the coupler force acting between failed and relief Shinkansen train sets. The device, which arranges a hydraulic cylinder in a form without rubber pads, adopts a piston return mechanism with pre-pressurization in the hydraulic circuit to improve the tracking performance. The coupler force is controlled by a PID controller, in order to reduce the residual deviation and improve the response performance. We discussed optimized parameters for controller design based on the response analysis with a non-linear model and verified its validity by a test to check the performance. This paper describes the results of an excitation test to confirm the performance of the prototype device.

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