Title: Ride comfort enhancement of heavy vehicles using magnetorheological seat suspension

Authors: S, Gad; H. Metered; A. Bassuiny; A.M. Abdel Ghany

Addresses: Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt ' Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt ' Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt ' Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract: This paper investigates the application of a controlled MR damper for a semi-active seat suspension for heavy vehicles, enabling more appropriate control algorithm. The proposed control system consists of a system controller that calculates the desired damping force using a proportional integral derivative (PID) controller tuned using genetic algorithm (GA), and a continuous state damper controller that estimates the command voltage that is required to track the desired damping force. The controlled semi-active seat suspension is compared to a passive seat suspension for predetermined base displacements. These inputs are calculated separately from the vibration of the body mass of a passive quarter-vehicle suspension. System performance criteria are evaluated in both time and frequency domains, in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed semi-active control algorithm. The generated results show that the proposed genetic PID controller of MR seat suspension offers a considerable enhancement of the ride comfort.

Keywords: vibration control; magnetorheological seat suspension; MR damper; PID control; GAs; genetic algorithms; continuous state control; controller design; ride comfort; heavy vehicles; semi-active suspension; damping force; magnetorheology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHVS.2015.070448

International Journal of Heavy Vehicle Systems, 2015 Vol.22 No.2, pp.93 - 113

Received: 29 Aug 2014
Accepted: 09 Dec 2014
Published online: 06 Jul 2015 *

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