Vibration control of an electrorheological fluid-based suspension system with an energy regenerative mechanism

Abstract

This work presents vibration control of a vehicle suspension system using a controllable electrorheological (ER) shock absorber activated by an energy generator without external power sources. The ER shock absorber has a rack and pinion mechanism which converts a linear motion of the piston to a rotary motion. This rotary motion is amplified by gears and subsequently activates a generator to produce electrical energy. The generated voltage is experimentally evaluated with respect to excitation magnitude and frequency of the ER shock absorber. After evaluating the damping force using the regenerated voltage, a quarter-car ER suspension model is established. A skyhook controller is then formulated and experimentally implemented to attenuate vibration using the regenerated energy. It has been demonstrated via experiment that suspension vibration under bumpy and sinusoidal road conditions is significantly controlled by activating the ER shock absorber operated by the proposed regenerative energy mechanism.