Active Suspension Control of Quarter-Car System With Experimental Validation

A reliable, efficient, and simple control is presented and validated for a quarter-car active suspension system equipped with an electro-hydraulic actuator. Unlike the existing techniques, this control does not use any function approximation, e.g., neural networks (NNs) or fuzzy-logic systems (FLSs), while the unmolded dynamics, including the hydraulic actuator behavior, can be accommodated effectively. Hence, the heavy computational costs and tedious parameter tuning phase can be remedied. Moreover, both the transient and steady-state suspension performance can be retained by incorporating prescribed performance functions (PPFs) into the control implementation. This guaranteed performance is particularly useful for guaranteeing the safe operation of suspension systems. Apart from theoretical studies, some practical considerations of control implementation and several parameter tuning guidelines are suggested. Experimental results based on a practical quarter-car active suspension test-rig demonstrate that this control can obtain a superior performance and has better computational efficiency over several other control methods.