Road test evaluation of vibration control performance of vehicle suspension featuring electrorheological shock absorbers

Abstract

This work presents road test results for vibration control of a vehicle suspension system equipped with continuously controllable electrorheological (ER) shock absorbers. The test vehicle is a mid-sized passenger car whose suspension systems are typical Macpherson strut types for the front part and multilink types for the rear part. The four ER shock absorbers (two for the front suspension and two for the rear suspension) are devised based on design specifications for the test vehicle and their damping forces are experimentally evaluated with respect to the electric field. The ER shock absorbers and conventional spring elements are then assembled into suspension systems. Prior to undertaking the road test, the front ER suspension is applied to the quarter-car facility in order to validate control performance of the skyhook controller embedded in on-chip hardware. Subsequently, the full-vehicle model incorporating four ER suspensions is established and the skyhook control gains are determined in an optimal manner. The controller is then implemented on the test vehicle which is equipped with several sensors, a data acquisition system, and high-voltage amplifiers. Control performances are evaluated under various road conditions (bump, long waved, rugged, paved, and unpaved) and presented in both time and frequency domains.