Optimal Active Control of Vehicle Suspension System Including Time Delay and Preview for Rough Roads

Abstract

An optimal preview control of a vehicle suspension system traveling on a rough road is studied. A three-dimensional seven degree-of-freedom car-riding model and several descriptions of the road surface roughness heights, including haversine (hole/bump) and stochastic filtered white noise models, are used in the analysis. It is assumed that contact-less sensors affixed to the vehicle front bumper measure the road surface height at some distances in the front of the car. The suspension systems are optimized with respect to ride comfort and road holding preferences including accelerations of the sprung mass, tire deflection, suspension rattle space and control force. The performance and power demand of active, active and delay, active and preview systems are evaluated and are compared with those for the passive system. The results show that the optimal preview control improves all aspects of the vehicle suspension performance while requiring less power. Effects of variation of preview time and variations in the road condition are also examined.