Comparative research on semi-active control strategies for magneto-rheological suspension

This paper presents the comparison results of a study to identify an appropriate semi-active control algorithm for a MR suspension system from a variety of semi-active control algorithms for use with MR dampers. Five representative control algorithms are considered including the skyhook controller, the hybrid controller, the LQG controller, the sliding mode controller and the fuzzy logic controller. To compare the control performances of the five control algorithms, a quarter car model with a MR damper is adopted as the baseline model for our analysis. After deriving the governing motion equations of the proposed dynamic model, five controllers are developed. Then each control policy is applied to the baseline model equipped with a MR damper. The performances of each control algorithm under various road conditions are compared along with the equivalent passive model in both time and frequency domains through the numerical simulation. Subsequently, a road test is performed to validate the actual control performance. The results show that the performance of a MR suspension system is highly dependent on the choice of algorithm employed, and the sliding mode control strategy exhibits an excellent integrated performance.