Attitude Control of Vehicle Based on Series Active Suspensions

Abstract

When vehicles with traditional passive suspension systems are driving in complex terrain, large swing and vibrations of the car body make passengers and goods uncomfortable and unstable, even at very low-speed conditions. Considering the actual need for intelligent resource exploration in the sustainable economy, visual-based perception and localization systems of unmanned vehicles still cannot handle the sensor noise coursed by large body motions. In order to improve the stability and safety of vehicles in complex terrain, an attitude control system is proposed for mainly eliminating the external body motions of the vehicle by using series active suspensions. A model predictive control method considered the differences between the simulated and real vehicle, and the performance restrictions of actuators are used to design the attitude controller for reducing the heaving, pitching, and rolling motions of the vehicle. After simulations and real car tests, the results show that the proposed attitude controller can significantly improve the attitude stability of vehicles in harsh terrain.