Impedance adaptive control of an active suspension system

A novel control approach for an active suspension system of a vehicle is presented by using the concept of mechanical impedance. The dynamical behavior of the suspension system is controlled subject to road disturbances. The active suspension system is designed for a one–quarter model of vehicle with considering the effects of nonlinearity of the hydraulic actuator. The control design consists of two control loops; the outer loop is an impedance adaptive control while the inner loop is a proportional-integral force control. This research presents the stability analysis and verifies the control method by the stability analysis and simulation results. Adaptive control can overcome the parametric uncertainty. This control approach provides the passenger comfort when passing a bump and ensures both the passenger comfort and vehicle handling after passing the bump. The proposed approach is compared with the passive suspension system. Simulation results show the superiority of active suspension system over the passive suspension system in terms of the vehicle handling and passenger comfort.