Energy-Flow-Driven (EFD) Semi-active Suspension Control

Compared to the active damping control, semi-active control is a more preferred alternative for practical use. Many different semi-active control methods have been developed, among which Skyhook (SH), Acceleration-Driven-Damper (ADD) and Model Predictive Control (MPC) have received lots of attentions. In order to improve the existing semi-active control methods in terms of performance and cost, a novel method Energy-Flow-Driven (EFD), based on the energy flow analysis of the suspension system, is proposed in this paper. The vehicle suspension (the shock absorber and the spring) has the ability of transferring energy between the vehicle chassis and tire. By utilizing this ability, EFD intrinsically switches SH and ADD from each other and synergically marries their advantages to achieve the best filtering performance in global frequency range. The superiority of EFD is evaluated in terms of non-linear Frequency Response (FR), shock test and real uneven road disturbance excitation. As a result of evaluation, EFD even outperforms MPC by providing better ride comfort, much better than SH and ADD. Simultaneously, its design and computation load is still on a par with SH or ADD, much lighter than MPC.