Abstract
This article describes semi-active modern control schemes for a quarter-vehicle suspension with a magnetorheological damper (MRD) to attenuate vibrations and simultaneously improve the passenger comfort and the vehicle road-holding. The first solution is a multiple positive position feedback (MPPF) control scheme to attenuate the vibration amplitude at the two modal frequencies. The second solution is based on elementary passivity considerations on the exact regulation error dynamics passive output. The passive output feedback is used to improve the control aims. Finally, the third solution deals with a disturbance rejection control (DRC) based on an extended state observer. The three proposed control schemes consider an inverse polynomial model of a commercial MRD for numerical implementation and are evaluated by comfort and road-holding performance indexes proposed in the literature. Furthermore, the effects of variation in the sprung mass (emulating different number of passengers) on the controllers’ performance is analysed. The numerical results show in both scenarios (constant and variable sprung mass) that passivity based control (PBC) and DRC improve the performance indexes compared with the classical sky-hook control and the open-loop systems with a different constant current input for the MRD. Obtained results for damping force and power consumption are within the operation range of the considered commercial MRD showing the viability for experimental implementation of the proposed control schemes.
Highlights
Rheological actuators (RA) are the most promising semi-active devices in energy dissipation of structures under dynamic loads
magnetorheological dampers (MRD) are used in the development of electronic suspension (ES) systems in order to reduce the transmissibility of mechanical vibration caused by unknown road irregularities improving passenger comfort as well as vehicle road-holding [6,7]
The proposed control schemes were quantitatively evaluated by performance indexes by following the methodology of analysis for automotive suspensions reported by Savaresi et al [7], and compared with traditional sky-hook semi-active control, showing a considerable improvement in the closed-loop system performance at the two main vibration modes simultaneously
Summary
Rheological actuators (RA) are the most promising semi-active devices in energy dissipation of structures under dynamic loads. There are non-parametric models to describe the hysteretic loop by polynomial velocity functions This type of model allows an expression of the electric current as a function of the desired damping force to semi-active control (SAC) applications [10]. This work is an extended and improved version of the results reported in [17] and presents the design of three modern control schemes for a quarter-vehicle suspension with MRD taking into account the actuator dynamics from an inverse polynomial model previously characterized. A robust adaptive controller based on differential flatness is developed where an ESO is incorporated to add robustness and adaptability to the primary control system All these proposed schemes are numerically implemented by considering an inverse polynomial model of a commercial MRD and evaluated by performance indexes reported in the literature.
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