Semi-Active Vibration Control of Seat Suspension Equipped with a Variable Equivalent Inertance-Variable Damping Device

The seat suspension has a significant influence on riding comfort in many practical applications, such as heavy duty vehicles, military vehicles, and high-speed crafts. This paper proposes a seat suspension equipped with a variable equivalent inertance-variable damping (VEI–VD) device and a novel semi-active vibration control strategy. The VEI–VD device can control its equivalent inertance and damping by controlling two external resistors in its electric circuit. Especially, the VEI part of the device can store and release vibration energy via the inside flywheel, which enables the seat suspension to have a four-quadrant controllable capability in the available force–velocity diagram, similar to an active system. First, the dynamic model of the VEI–VD device is built, and a prototype is developed and tested to identify the model parameters and verify its characteristics. Then, a semi-active vibration control method is proposed for the VEI–VD seat suspension. The control method uses a sliding mode controller to acquire the desired control force for reducing vibration; then, according to the desired force and system states, the VEI–VD device is tuned by a force-tracking scheme to generate a real force. In the numerical validation, the vibration transmissibility of VEI–VD seat suspension around its natural frequency is tested with different states. The effectiveness of force-tracking control strategies for different types of suspensions is verified. In the random excitation test, the root means square acceleration of the VEI–VD seat is reduced by 30.72% compared with a passive seat. The VEI–VD seat suspension shows great potential in applications.