Fuzzy PID control method for damping of electronically controlled air suspension shock absorbers for vehicles

Abstract

A damping fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control method for electronically controlled air suspension shock absorbers was proposed to reduce the RMS values of the body vibration acceleration and improve vehicle ride comfort. Depending on the operating mode of the electronically controlled air suspension shock absorber, a mechanical model of the air suspension shock absorber was established. A fuzzy PID control technology for damping control of the shock absorber is designed by combining a PID control algorithm with the fuzzy control concept. The adaptive expansion factor of the cybernetics domain for the fuzzy PID controller is calculated by considering nonlinear characteristics and time delay to improve the controller’s adaptability. Then, the control parameters are adjusted based on the control deviation and deviation rate parameters. The nonlinear detection platform produced by an enterprise is selected to build an experimental environment for analysis. Simulation results reveal that when the vehicle speed is 30 km h−1, the RMS values of the body vibration acceleration upon applying the proposed method is approximately 0.02 and 0.05 km h−2, respectively, on Class B and C road surfaces. Furthermore, the RMS values of the body vibration acceleration using the proposed method has little fluctuation; when the vehicle speed is 60 km h−1, the RMS values of the body vibration acceleration is 0.022 and 0.028 km h−2, respectively, on Class B and C road surfaces, indicating that the proposed method can effectively reduce the RMS values of the body vibration acceleration and improve rider comfort.