Performance of Active Control and Energy Harvesting of a Novel Suspension System

Abstract

Abstract Several processes were employed to improve the defects lie in the existing energy-regenerative suspension, such as the low efficiency of energy harvesting, the lack of unified assessment standards on the performance of energy harvesting. Firstly, a novel suspension system was established with the energy harvesting could also be implemented while controlling, which would improve the efficiency of energy harvesting; Then power flow analysis method was adopted to realize the quantitative analysis on the performance of energy harvesting, 4 evaluation criteria on performance of energy harvesting were established in considering of relative energy-regenerative ability and absolute energy-regenerative ability, which would be used as the unified assessment standards. A LQR controller was presented to control and reduce the vibration of the novel suspension system. To optimize the weight coefficients of LQR active control algorithm, an improved genetic algorithm was designed with 5 improvements on both genetic operator and genetic mechanism. The simulations on the performance of active control of the novel suspension system were preformed, the results show that the riding comfort and handling stability of vehicle are both improved with the genetic-algorithm-optimized LQR controller. The simulations on the performance of energy harvesting of the novel suspension system under different road excitations were conducted, the results show that the assessment standards could represent the energy harvesting ability of suspension system, the novel suspension system provide a better energy harvesting efficiency, the self-powered of suspension system under standard road excitation is realized.