Title: Semi-active control of an integrated full-car suspension with seat suspension and driver body model using ER dampers

Authors: Haiping Du; Weihua Li; Nong Zhang

Addresses: School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia ' School of Mechanical, Materials and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia ' Mechatronics and Intelligent Systems, University of Technology, Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia; State Key Laboratory for Advanced Vehicle Body Design and Manufacturing, Hunan University, Hunan 410082, China

Abstract: In this paper, an integrated vehicle semi-active suspension control system that includes a full-car suspension model (7 Degree-Of-Freedom (DOF)), a seat suspension model (2 DOF) and a driver body model (4 DOF) is developed. A H_∞ static output feedback controller which only uses measurable variables as feedback signals is designed to improve vehicle ride comfort performance in terms of driver head acceleration under constraints of actuator saturation, suspension deflection limitation and road holding capability. The controller design conditions, which are expressed as Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) are derived by dealing with each control input separately under a common Lyapunov function, so that a feasible solution can be found for the integrated high order system that has five control inputs and ten control outputs; each control input may require different feedback signals and have different saturation limitations. Furthermore, a semiactive control strategy is applied to implement the proposed control system using electrorheological (ER) dampers. Numerical simulations are used to evaluate the improvement of ride comfort performance in terms of driver head acceleration responses under typical road disturbances.

Keywords: integrated semi-active control; ER dampers; vehicle suspension; seat suspension; driver body models; modelling; feedback control; ride comfort; driver head acceleration; actuator saturation; suspension deflection limitation; road holding capability; controller design; linear matrix inequalities; LMIs; electrorheological damping; numerical simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2013.056133

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2013 Vol.63 No.2/3, pp.159 - 184

Received: 28 Oct 2011
Accepted: 18 Sep 2012
Published online: 16 Oct 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article