Title: Robust control of vehicle suspension with electrohydraulic actuator

Authors: Haiping Du; Nong Zhang; Weihua Li

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

Abstract: This paper presents a study on robust control of vehicle electrohydraulic suspension with parameter uncertainties. The change of sprung mass and the variation of spring stiffness, damping coefficient, and actuator parameters are considered as parameter uncertainties and described by different methods. A robust controller is then designed for the uncertain vehicle suspension model to optimise its performances on ride comfort, suspension deflection, and road holding ability considering suspension and actuator parameter uncertainties and actuator saturation. The sufficient conditions for designing such a controller are derived as linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) which can be solved using standard software. Numerical simulations are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. It is confirmed by the simulation results that the applied control strategy performs better than the passive suspension regardless of the parameter uncertainties.

Keywords: active suspension; robust control; parameter uncertainty; electrohydraulic actuators; actuator saturation; vehicle suspension; controller design; sprung mass; spring stiffness; damping coefficient; actuator parameters; linear matrix inequalities; LMIs; numerical simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVP.2013.058279

International Journal of Vehicle Performance, 2013 Vol.1 No.2, pp.157 - 182

Received: 14 Feb 2012
Accepted: 26 Nov 2012
Published online: 12 Jul 2014 *

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