Chapter 10 - Hybrid active and semi-active seat suspension

Abstract

In previous chapters, we have investigated the active and semi-active seat suspensions, including the system and controller designs. By analyzing the experimental results, we find that the two systems have their respective advantages in terms of vibration control. In this chapter, we propose a hybrid seat suspension equipping both the semi-active and active system. The seat suspension has an active actuator and a rotary magnetorheological (MR) damper, simultaneously. The maximum force output of the applied active actuator is 70 N, which is insufficient for a seat suspension with only active actuator to control the resonance vibration. The MR damper is able to suppress the high vibration energy at the resonance frequency with low energy consumption, and then a small active force can further improve the seat suspension performance significantly. The experiment results indicate that the hybrid seat suspension can have excellent performance in practical application. The hybrid active and semi-active seat suspension can fill the energy consumption gap within active and semi-active control seat suspension.