Design and comparisons of adaptive harmonic control for a quarter-car active suspension

Abstract

Car suspensions have the job to keep the tires in contact with the road surface as much as possible, to deliver steering stability with good handling and to guarantee passenger comfort. Most modern vehicles have independent front suspension and many vehicles also have independent rear suspension. Independent suspensions are preferred instead of dependent suspensions for their better ride handling, stability, steering and comfort but they provide less overall strength and a complex design which increases the cost and maintenance expenses for such a suspension. For this reason, automotive engineers struggle to discover new suspension components or advanced control solutions. Taking a step forward in this direction, the paper presents in the beginning one of the well-known mathematical models of a quarter-car active suspension. The obtained model is then implemented in a MATLAB/Simulink simulation which compares multiple control solutions. The only feedback considered for each control algorithm is the measurement of the body acceleration. Among these investigated control algorithms is the adaptive harmonic control solution proposed by this paper. The controller generates a harmonic control signal with variable amplitude and frequency based on the body acceleration feedback. The comparison analysis shows that the proposed control solution demonstrates quite good potential, generating in some cases better results than the other control algorithms.