Preview Control of Automotive Active Suspension Systems to Improve Ride Comfort Using V2V Communication

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication is an essential technology for autonomous driving above Level 4. This paper presents preview control of automotive actives suspension systems to improve ride comfort using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. Generally, while preview-controlled active suspension systems have even greater potential than feedback-controlled systems, their main challenge is obtaining preview information of the road profile ahead. A critical drawback of the "look-ahead" sensors is an increased risk of incorrect detection influenced by water, snow, and other soft obstacles on the road. In this work, a preview control algorithm for active suspension systems has been developed without information about the road elevation. The proposed controller is designed with the future disturbance information, vertical wheel acceleration transmitted from preceding vehicle via V2V communication. For active suspension control, an optimal preview controller is designed with the reduced linear half-car model. The performance of the proposed controller has been validated via computer simulation studies. It is shown that the vehicle ride comfort can be improved by the proposed preview control approach more than by the feedback method.