Mohamed Soliman

By Hisham M. Soliman, Rashid Al-Abri and Mohammed Albadi

This chapter deals with the problem of state feedback control for an active quarter-car suspension system with control input constraint. The dynamics of the suspension system is first formed in terms of the control objectives: ride comfort, suspension deflection, and maximum actuator control force. The control task is formulated as robustly placing the closed poles in a desired region against different passenger load. Since digital computers are widely used in the vehicle industry, a new saturated controller design method is presented for regional pole-placement of uncertain discrete time systems. The constraint of control input saturation is considered in the design phase. The desired dynamic performance for uncertain discrete-time systems is represented by the settling time and damping ratio. A sufficient condition is derived to place the poles in a desired region. The design is formulated in terms of linear matrix inequality optimization. The effectiveness of the proposed design is illustrated by applying it to a quarter?car active suspension system. Different road tests for the proposed controller are carried out: step and bump disturbances. The proposed design achieves the desired oscillation damping due to road disturbances in addition to passenger comfort. The results are compared with the passive suspension system.

Part of the book: Vibration Analysis and Control in Mechanical Structures and Wind Energy Conversion Systems