This book describes the development of a new analytical, full-vehicle model with nine degrees of freedom, which uses the new modified skyhook strategy (SKDT) to control the full-vehicle vibration problem. The book addresses the incorporation of road bank angle to create a zero steady-state torque requirement when designing the direct tilt control and the dynamic model of the full car model. It also highlights the potential of the SKDT suspension system to improve cornering performance and paves the way for future work on the vehicle’s integrated chassis control system. Active tilting technology to improve vehicle cornering is the focus of numerous ongoing research projects, but these don’t consider the effect of road bank angle in the control system design or in the dynamic model of the tilting standard passenger vehicles. The non-incorporation of road bank angle creates a non-zero steady state torque requirement.

Vehicle suspension systems have been extensively explored in the past decades, contributing to ride comfort, handling and safety improvements. The new generation of powertrain and propulsion systems, as a new trend in modern vehicles, poses significant challenges to suspension system design. Consequently, novel suspension concepts are required, not only to improve the vehicle's dynamic performance, but also to enhance the fuel economy by utilizing regeneration functions. However, the development of new-generation suspension systems necessitates advanced suspension components, such as springs and dampers. This Ph. D. thesis, on the development of hybrid electromagnetic dampers is an Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) collaborative project sponsored by Mechworks Systems Inc. The ultimate goal of this project is to conduct feasibility study of the development of electromagnetic dampers for automotive suspension system applications. With new improvements in power electronics and magnetic materials, electromagnetic dampers are forging the way as a new technology in vibration isolation systems such as vehicle suspension systems. The use of electromagnetic dampers in active vehicle suspension systems has drawn considerable attention in the recent years, attributed to the fact that active suspension systems have superior performance in terms of ride comfort and road-handling performances compared to their passive and semi-active counterparts in automotive applications. As a response to the expanding demand for superior vehicle suspension systems, this thesis describes the design and development of a new electromagnetic damper as a customized linear permanent magnet actuator to be used in active suspension systems. The proposed electromagnetic damper has energy harvesting capability. Unlike commercial passive/semi-active dampers that convert the vibration kinetic energy into heat, the dissipated energy in electromagnetic dampers can be regenerated as useful electrical energy. Electromagnetic dampers are used in active suspension systems, where the damping coefficient is controlled rapidly and reliably through electrical manipulations. Although demonstrating superb performance, active suspensions still have some issues that must be overcome. They have high energy consumption, weight, and cost, and are not fail-safe in case of a power break-down. Since the introduction of the electromagnetic dampers, the challenge was to address these drawbacks. Hybrid electromagnetic dampers, which are proposed in this Ph. D. thesis, are potential solutions to high weight, high cost, and fail-safety issues of an active suspension system. The hybrid electromagnetic damper utilizes the high performance of an active electromagnetic damper with the reliability of passive dampers in a single package, offering a fail-safe damper while decreasing weight and cost. Two hybrid damper designs are proposed in this thesis. The first one operates based on hydraulic damping as a source of passive damping, while the second design employs the eddy current damping effect to provide the passive damping part of the system. It is demonstrated that the introduction of the passive damping can reduce power consumption and weight in an active automotive suspension system. The ultimate objective of this thesis is to employ existing suspension system and damper design knowledge together with new ideas from electromagnetic theories to develop new electromagnetic dampers. At the same time, the development of eddy current dampers, as a potential source for passive damping element in the final hybrid design, is considered and thoroughly studied.

This book describes the procedures of developing an adaptive suspension system with examples. This book gives a thorough introduction to air suspension systems, which contain height leveling systems, electronic control systems, design fundamentals, performance superiority, etc. This book encompasses all essential aspects of suspension systems and provides an easy approach to their understanding and design. Provides a step-by-step approach using pictures, graphs, tables, and examples so that the reader may easily grasp difficult concepts. This book defines and examines suspension mechanisms and their geometrical features. Suspension motions and ride models are derived for the study of vehicle ride comfort. Analysis of suspension design factors and component sizing along with air suspension systems and their functionalities are reviewed.

Semi-Active Suspension Control Design for Vehicles presents a comprehensive discussion of designing control algorithms for semi-active suspensions. It also covers performance analysis and control design. The book evaluates approaches to different control theories, and it includes methods needed for analyzing and evaluating suspension performances, while identifying optimal performance bounds. The structure of the book follows a classical path of control-system design; it discusses the actuator or the variable-damping shock absorber, models and technologies. It also models and discusses the vehicle that is equipped with semi-active dampers, and the control algorithms. The text can be viewed at three different levels: tutorial for novices and students; application-oriented for engineers and practitioners; and methodology-oriented for researchers. The book is divided into two parts. The first part includes chapters 2 to 6, in which fundamentals of modeling and semi-active control design are discussed. The second part includes chapters 6 to 8, which cover research-oriented solutions and case studies. The text is a comprehensive reference book for research engineers working on ground vehicle systems; automotive and design engineers working on suspension systems; control engineers; and graduate students in control theory and ground vehicle systems. - Appropriate as a tutorial for students in automotive systems, an application-oriented reference for engineers, and a control design-oriented text for researchers that introduces semi-active suspension theory and practice - Includes explanations of two innovative semi-active suspension strategies to enhance either comfort or road-holding performance, with complete analyses of both - Also features a case study showing complete implementation of all the presented strategies and summary descriptions of classical control algorithms for controlled dampers

This book covers complex issues for a vehicle suspension model, including non-linearities and uncertainties in a suspension model, network-induced time delays, and sampled-data model from a theoretical point of view. It includes control design methods such as neural network supervisory, sliding mode variable structure, optimal control, internal-model principle, feedback linearization control, input-to-state stabilization, and so on. Every control method is applied to the simulation for comparison and verification. Features: Includes theoretical derivation, proof, and simulation verification combined with suspension models Provides the vibration control strategies for sampled-data suspension models Focuses on the suspensions with time-delays instead of delay-free Covers all the models related to quarter-, half-, and full-vehicle suspensions Details rigorous mathematical derivation process for each theorem supported by MATLAB®-based simulation This book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in automotive engineering, vehicle vibration, mechatronics, control systems, applied mechanics, and vehicle dynamics.

With the new advancements in the vibration control strategies and controllable actuator manufacturing, the semi-active actuators (dampers) are finding their way as an essential part of vibration isolators, particularly in vehicle suspension systems. This is attributed to the fact that in a semi-active system, the damping coefficients can be adjusted to improve ride comfort and road handling performances. The currently available semi-active damper technologies can be divided into two main groups. The first uses controllable electromagnetic valves. The second uses magnetorheological (MR) fluid to control the damping characteristics of the system. Leading automotive companies such as General Motors and Volvo have started to use semi-active actuators in the suspension systems of high-end automobiles, such as the Cadillac Seville and Corvette, to improve the handling and ride performance in the vehicle. But much more research and development is needed in design, fabrication, and control of semi-active suspension systems and many challenges must be overcome in this area. Particularly in the area of heavy vehicle systems, such as light armored vehicles, little related research has been done, and there exists no commercially available controllable damper suitable for the relatively high force and large displacement requirements of such application. As the first response to these requirements, this thesis describes the design and modeling of an in-house semi-active twin-tube shock absorber with an internal variable solenoid-actuated valve. A full-scale semi-active damper prototype is developed and the shock absorber is tested to produce the required forcing range. The test results are compared with results of the developed mathematical model. To gain a better understanding of the semi-active suspension controlled systems and evaluate the performance of those systems, using perturbation techniques this thesis provides a detailed nonlinear analysis of the semi-active systems and establishes the issue of nonlinearity in on-off semi-active controlled systems. Despite different semi-active control methods and the type of actuators used in a semi-active controlled system, one important practical aspect of all hydro-mechanical computer controlled systems is the response-time. The longest response-time is usually introduced by the actuator -in this case, controllable actuator - in the system. This study investigates the effect of response-time in a semi-active controlled suspension system using semi-active dampers. Numerical simulations and analytical techniques are deployed to investigate the issue. The performance of the system due to the response-time is then analyzed and discussed. Since the introduction of the semi-active control strategy, the challenge was to develop methods to effectively use the capabilities of semi-active devices. In this thesis, two semi-active control strategies are proposed. The first controller to be proposed is a new hybrid semi-active control strategy based on the conventional Rakheja-Sankar (R-S) semi-active control to provide better ride-handling quality for vehicle suspension systems as well as industrial vibration isolators. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this new strategy, the analytical method of averaging and the numerical analysis method are deployed. In addition, a one-degree-of-freedom test bed equipped with a semi-active magnetorheological (MR) damper is developed. The tests are performed using the MATLAB XPC-target to guarantee the real-time implementation of the control algorithm. The second controller is an intelligent fuzzy logic controller system to optimize the suspension performance. The results from this intelligent system are compared with those of several renowned suspension control methods such as Skyhook. It is shown that the proposed controller can enhance concurrently the vehicle handling and ride comfort, while consuming less energy than existing control methodologies. The key goal of this thesis is to employ the existing knowledge of the semi-active systems together with the new ideas to develop a semi-active suspension system. At the same time, development of an experimental simulation system for real-time control of an experimental test bed is considered. To achieve its goals and objectives, this research study combines and utilizes the numerical simulations and analytical methods, as well as lab-based experimental works. The challenge in this research study is to identify practical and industrial problems and develop proper solutions to those problems using viable scientific approaches.