Designing an optimal non-linear controller for an active vehicle suspension system and investigating its effect on electrical energy harvesting

One of the most important challenges in using active vehicle suspension systems is the high energy consumption of these types of systems. The use of the electrical energy harvesting system is one of the ways to reduce energy consumption in active suspension. In this article, by designing a new optimal controller of the vehicle active suspension system and the electric energy harvesting system, the interaction of them has been investigated. The active control loop calcultas the required force to realize the desired mechanical performance and is based on the constrained nonlinear predictive control algorithm that is obtained from the continuous model of the system. Also, the mechanical indexs of the suspension system, including travel comfort and roadability, are managed by weight coefficients defined in the active control algorithm. The effect of the weight coefficients of the active control algorithm in such a way to have the maximum harvesting of electrical energy at the same time as achieving the desired mechanical performance is another issue that has been addressed in this article. The results of the simulations for two types of road show that the correct use of the active control algorithm governing the problem leads to the realization of the desired mechanical performance combined with the maximum harvesting of electrical energy and the external energy consumption of the active control system is significantly reduced.