Abstract

Generally, passenger ride comfort can be interpreted as an attenuation of sprung mass acceleration or as peak minimization of sprung mass vertical displacement, while good handling can be characterized as an attenuation of unsprung mass acceleration. This effort devoted to passive suspension design is ineffective because improvements to ride comfort are achieved at the expense of handling and vice versa. Instead, the best result can be achieved by active suspension, i.e. when an additional force can act on the system and simultaneously improve both of these conflicting requirements. Another important goal of the control design is to maintain robustness of the closed loop system. In the paper, fuzzy logic is used to simulate active suspension control of a one-half-car model. Velocity and acceleration of the front and rear wheels and undercarriage velocity above the wheels are taken as input data of the fuzzy logic controller. Active forces improving vehicle driving, ride comfort, and handling properties are considered to be the controlled actuator outputs. The controller design is proposed to minimize chassis and wheels deflection when uneven road surfaces, pavement points, etc. are acting on tires of running cars. As a result, a comparison of an active suspension fuzzy control and a spring/damper passive suspension is shown using MATLAB simulations.