Series active variable geometry suspension: full-car prototyping and road testing
File(s)Final Manuscript - TMECH - 2021-07-11.pdf (2.27 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Yu, Min
Cheng, Cheng
Evangelou, simos
Dini, daniele
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In this paper, afull-car prototype of the recently proposed mechatronic suspension, Series Active Variable Geometry Suspension (SAVGS), is developed for on-road driving experimental proof of concept, aiming to be adopted by suspension OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) as an alternative solution to fully active suspensions. Particularly, mechanical modifications are performed to both corners of the front double-wishbone suspensionof a production car, with active single-links attached to the upper-ends of the spring-damper units, while both corners of the rear suspension remain inthe original (passive) configurations.The mechanical modifications involve innovatively designed parts to enable the desired suspension performance improvements, while maintaining ride harshness at conventional levels.Areal-time embedded system is further developed to primarily implement:1) power supply, data acquisition and measurementsof the vehicle dynamics related variables, and 2) robust control application for the ride comfort and road holding enhancement, which is based on a derived linearized model of the full-car dynamics and a newly synthesizedH-infinity control scheme. Results obtained from on-road driving experiments are inessential agreement with numerical simulation results also produced. Overall, the full-car prototypeof SAVGS demonstrates promising suspension performance,with anaverage 3 dB attenuation (or equivalently 30% reduction) of the chassis vertical acceleration at aroundthe human-sensitive frequencies (2-5Hz),as compared to the original vehicle with the passive suspension system. More importantly, the prototype also indicatesthe practicality of the solution, as the SAVGS retrofit to a real car is achieved by simple mechanical modifications, compact actuator packaging, smallmass increment(21.5kg increase with respect to the original vehicle), limited power usage (an average value of 134W in DC batteries with a Class D random road) and acceptable economic cost.
Date Issued
2021-07-14
Date Acceptance
2021-07-11
Citation
IEEE-ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2021, 27 (3)
ISSN
1083-4435
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Journal / Book Title
IEEE-ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
Volume
27
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9485043
Grant Number
EP/N025954/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Automation & Control Systems
Engineering, Manufacturing
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Engineering, Mechanical
Engineering
Suspensions (mechanical systems)
Roads
Mechatronics
Prototypes
Automobiles
Vehicle dynamics
IEEE transactions
Active suspension
full-car prototype
road testing
robust control
DESIGN
Industrial Engineering & Automation
0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering
0910 Manufacturing Engineering
0913 Mechanical Engineering
Publication Status
Published online
Date Publish Online
2021-07-14