Explicit model predictive control of an active suspension system

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Model predictive control (MPC) is increasingly finding its way into industrial applications, due to its superior tracking performance and ability to formally handle system constraints. However, the real-time capability problems related to the conventional implicit model predictive control (i-MPC) framework are well known, especially when targeting low-cost electronic control units (ECUs) for high bandwidth systems, such as automotive active suspensions, which are the topic of this paper. In this context, to overcome the real-time implementation issues of i-MPC, this study proposes explicit model predictive control (e-MPC), which solves the optimization problem off-line, via multi-parametric quadratic programming (mp-QP). e-MPC reduces the on-line algorithm to a function evaluation, which replaces the computationally demanding on-line solution of the quadratic programming (QP) problem. An e-MPC based suspension controller is designed and experimentally validated for a case study Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), equipped with the active ACOCAR suspension system from the Tenneco Monroe product family. The target is to improve ride comfort in the frequency range of primary ride ( 40% compared to the passive vehicle set-up for frequencies < 4 Hz, and by up to 19% compared to the same vehicle with a skyhook controller on the 0-100 Hz frequency range.