Abstract
As the concept of variable stiffness and variable damping (VSVD) has increasingly drawn attention, suspensions applied with magnetorheological (MR) dampers to achieve varying stiffness and damping have been an attractive method to improve vehicle performance and driver comfort further. As highly nonlinearity of MR damper dynamics and coupled interconnections in the case of multi-output control, to build a direct control system for VSVD suspension based on multiple MR dampers is difficult. Applying Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model on the VSVD system enables the linear control theory to be directly utilized to build the multi-output controller for multi-MR dampers. In this paper, a T-S fuzzy model is established to describe an MR VSVD suspension model, and then an H ∞ controller that considers the multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) coupled interconnections characteristic and multi-object optimization is designed. To estimate state information for the T-S fuzzy model in real-time, a state observer is designed and integrated in the controller. Then, the performance of the VSVD control algorithm was evaluated by numerical simulation. The results demonstrate that the T-S fuzzy model-based H ∞ controller outperforms the independent control method for a VSVD suspension system with multi-MR dampers.
Highlights
Vehicle suspension is used to provide ride comfort, road holding, and other dynamic functions such as supporting the vehicle weight and maintain vehicle height
This paper will propose a TakagiSugeno fuzzy model-based H ∞ (TSFH) variable stiffness and variable damping (VSVD) control strategy so that the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of the VSVD suspension’s two MR dampers can be both considered in the controller design and the desired control performance can be realized for a practical system
A T-S Fuzzy model-based H∞ controller for multi-MR VSVD suspension was successfully designed in this study
Summary
Vehicle suspension is used to provide ride comfort, road holding, and other dynamic functions such as supporting the vehicle weight and maintain vehicle height. The performance of the controller based on the nonlinear energy sink concept has been verified by simulation work In this case, the control algorithm is applied to a horizontal MR damper in a McPherson suspension structure to adjust the corresponding stiffness value. The algorithm which is capable of solving the coupling effect and high nonlinearity of a multi-MR damper control system has rarely been developed, papers have verified the superiority of controllers’ performance for a single MR damper system Based on this motivation, this paper will propose a TakagiSugeno fuzzy model-based H ∞ (TSFH) VSVD control strategy so that the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of the VSVD suspension’s two MR dampers can be both considered in the controller design and the desired control performance can be realized for a practical system.
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