Study on the ride comfort of vehicles driven by in-wheel motors

Abstract

Vehicles driven by in-wheel motors have received more and more attention. However, due to the introduction of in-wheel motors, the ratio between unsprung and sprung mass is increased. In this article, to study the influence of this change on ride comfort of vehicles driven by in-wheel motors, an 11 degrees of freedom of vehicle ride comfort model will be presented and studied with MATLAB/Simulink. Then, road tests will be conducted to corroborate the simulation results. It can be obtained that the vehicle ride comfort becomes poor with the increasing unsprung mass. Finally, semi-active air-suspension proportional–integral–derivative control system will be proposed to improve the vehicle ride comfort. Through the simulation results, one can come to a conclusion that the proportional–integral–derivative control system for air suspension is feasible and effective to improve the ride comfort of the vehicles driven by in-wheel motors.