Semiactive Suspension Control of a Light Commercial Vehicle

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of a semi-active suspension control system for a light commercial vehicle using continuously varying dampers, accelerometers, and an onboard processor. The control algorithms such as sky-hook, ground-hook, and hybrid are designed based on the vertical velocities of each quarter of the car. These velocities are estimated from Kalman filter using quarter car vehicle model. The controllers are implemented in an actual vehicle equipped with the developed semiactive suspensions system and their performance are compared. Sky-hook control improved ride comfort by reducing body accelerations in the 1-3 Hz range, ground-hook control improved road holding by reducing wheel accelerations in the 10-15 Hz range, and hybrid control results were in between the sky-hook and ground-hook results. The main contribution of this paper is the successful implementation of the semiactive suspension control strategies on an actual vehicle with accompanying experimental results.