Modeling and Simulation of Automobile Suspension

System
B.Pratheepa
Department of ECE,
Dr.Mahalingam College of Engineering and Technology,
Pollachi-642 003, India
sajini42@gmail.com

Abstract-This paper describes the mathematical model and A. Passive suspension: For passive suspension shown in
simulation of controller for active suspension with Linear fig.1, using the Newton’s second law of motion and free-
Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller and about the body diagram concept, the equations of motion are derived.
improvement in performance. In this work, a controller is (1)
designed for active suspension system and simulated for both
passive and active suspension system using SIMULINK in
MATLAB. Two controller design approaches, namely
conventional method (CM) and acceleration dependent method
(ADM) have been examined for the active system. Results are
graphical representation of various parameters like Passenger
displacement and acceleration, RMS acceleration etc which
shows active suspension system is more efficient than Passive
system. From this simulation, we can say that system has
better potential to improve both the ride comfort and road
holding.

I. INTRODUCTION

In any vehicle suspension system, there are varieties of

performance parameters to be considered. The most
important parameters are [1]:
A. Ride Comfort: is directly related to the acceleration
sensed by passengers when travelling on a rough road.
B. Body motion: which are known as bounce, pitch and
roll of the sprung mass are created primarily by
cornering and breaking maneuvers.
C. Road handling: is associated with the contact forces of
the tires and the road surface.
D. Suspension travel: refers to the relative displacement
between the sprung and the unsprung masses.
The advantage of controlled suspension is that a better
set of design trade-offs are possible compared with passive
suspension.
In this study, we are dealing with LQR control and
analyze how the above parameters are varied from passive
to active. Figure 1. Quarter Car Model of Passive Suspension

II. MATHEMATICAL MODELLING

In this work, a quarter car model with three degrees-of- ……………..(3)

freedom is considered. It not only leads to simplified
analysis but also represents most of the features of the full Using following notations, as given by Lin and
model. The model consists of passenger seat and sprung Kanellakopoulos [2],
mass that is supported on springs and unsprung mass which
refers to the mass of wheel assembly. The tyre has been
replaced with its equivalent stiffness and tire damping is
neglected. The suspension, tyre and passenger seat are The equations of motion can be written in state variable
modeled by linear springs in parallel with dampers. form where x1, x2, x3, x4, x5 and x6 are taken as the states.

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 Therefore, III. LINEAR QUADRATIC
REGULATOR(LQR) CONTROLLER DESIGN:
(4)
The performance characteristics,[3,4] which are of most
interest when designing the vehicle suspension, are
passenger ride comfort, suspension travel and road holding.
The controller should minimize the unwanted quantities and
hence suitable six states are selected to configure the
controller. The various states considered are passenger
displacement and velocity, sprung mass displacement and
velocity, and tyre displacement and velocity. Hence, the
…….…….. (6) state vector matrix is
Writing these equations in state space representation Resulting state space representation is a linear time
form, i.e represented as , invariant system (LTI). State feedback control for active
B. Active suspension suspension is a powerful tool for designing a controller. For
Active suspension system has a hydraulic actuator in controller design, it is assumed that all the states are
addition to the passive elements. The hydraulic actuator is available and also could be measured exactly. This is not
located parallel to the suspension spring and shock absorber. always the case, particularly when the active suspension
For active suspension shown in figure 2, using the Newton’s system being controlled has complicated internal dynamic
second law of motion and free body diagram concept, the behavior, which is difficult to directly measure. State
equations of motion are derived and expressed in state space estimators could be developed to estimate the state variables
representation as from a limit number of observations.. However, this state
estimator is not dealt in the paper. And, Hydraulic dynamics
of force actuator is not considered since it is assumed that
the required force is assumed to be applied in between the
sprung and unsprung mass. Let us consider a state variable
feedback regulator.
(10)
Where K is the state feedback gain matrix. The
performance index J represents the performance
characteristic requirement as well as the controller input
limitations. In this work, two different approaches are
(9) considered in order to evaluate the performance index and
hence designing the optimal controller. The first approach is
the conventional method (CM) in which only the system
states and inputs are penalized in the performance index.
But in the acceleration dependent method (ADM), special
importance is given to the ride comfort by introducing
passenger acceleration term in the performance index.

A. Conventional method
In this method, the performance index J penalizes the
state variables and the inputs. Thus it has the standard form
as,

(11)

Where . Here the passenger acceleration, which

is indicator of the ride comfort, is not included. By Bryson’s
rule, Q and R are diagonal and symmetric in nature.
Linear optimal control theory provides the solution of
(11) in the form of (10).The gain matrix K is computed from
Figure 2 Quarter Car Model of Active Suspension ,
Writing these equations in state space representation
(12)
form i.e., in the form .

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 Where P is obtained by solving Algebraic riccati
equation. By substituting gain matrix K, we get the Figure 3.Integrated Passive Active Block
controlled states in the form,
Fig.3 shows the Simulink used for plotting graphs
(13) between the parameters like passenger displacement,
acceleration etc. From which we can measure the efficiency
B. Acceleration Dependent method of the active system over passive.
Acceleration dependent method is new approach giving Where PD – Passenger Displacement
more importance to passenger acceleration in the PA – Passenger Acceleration
performance index. Suppose that the vector z represents the SD – Sprung mass Displacement
passenger acceleration , SV – Sprung mass velocity
TD – Unsprung mass Displacement
TV – Unsprung mass velocity
Then , the performance index could be written in the ST – Suspension travel
following form The main Simulink consists of several subblocks which
are shown below:
(14) B. Passive block:

Here, S is weighing matrix, which can be suitably

assumed. Therefore, the Eq.(14) becomes

(15)

Where (16)

(17)

(18)

the optimum value is found in same manner as (11).

IV. SIMULINK MATHEMATICAL MODEL Figure.4 Passive block

Simulink [5] blocks developed to handle the controller C. Active CM block:

design and simulation for active and passive systems are
shown below:
A. Simulink including both active and passive blocks:

Figure.5 Active CM Block

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 D. Active ADM the two control methods were compared with passive
block: suspension. Both passive and active suspension systems are

analyzed subjecting them to arbitrary road input, which

represents a bump on the road. The sinusoidal bump with
frequency of 4Hz has been characterized by,

Where, a = 0.025(road bump height 5cm)

Using practical values for suspension parameters, [6]the
system response for the bump has been analyzed for passive
suspension and active suspension with two different
methods.
In the graphs (representation of colors),
COLOR WAVEFORM IN GRAPH
Figure.6 Active ADM block
Red Input
Fig.4 shows Simulink for calculating the value of matrix
Yellow Passive
[x] for passive system.
Purple Active ADM
Fig.5 shows Simulink for calculating the value of matrix
[x] for active system implemented in Conventional method. Blue Active CM

Fig.6 shows Simulink for calculating the value of matrix Following figures (output of Simulink) illustrate response
[x] for active system implemented in Acceleration of vehicle model under bumpy road input.
dependent method.
A. Passenger
E. Interconnection using MUX and DEMUX: displacement:

Figure 8

B. Passenger Acceleration:

Figure.7 Interconnection using MUX and DEMUX

Fig.7 shows connection of various units in Simulink . It

also contains units required for calculating passenger
acceleration and Suspension travel from the value [x].

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS:

With the above developed MATLAB SIMULINK we

verify LQR control design for active suspension system and Figure.9

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 C. Sprung mass Displacement:

F. ISO 2631-RMS Acceleration:

Figure.10

From fig.8 and 9,it is evident that passenger displacement

and passenger acceleration have significantly reduced for
the active system compared to passive system with ADM Figure 13
system is slightly lower than CM system.
Fig.10 and 11 shows that sprung and unsprung mass
displacement is also less for active system than passive one.
From the suspension travel plot in Fig.12 it can be seen that
for active ADM system the suspension travel has been
D. Unsprung mass Displacement: reduced by around 35% which shows better rattle space
utilization.
According to ISO 2631 standard[8,9] for the whole body
vibration exposure limitations and comfort levels to
vibration response in vertical direction are defined by the
vibration tolerance limits, which are illustrated through the
graph plotted between the RMS acceleration and frequency
in Fig 12. RMS acceleration of active CM suspension and
RMS acceleration of active ADM suspension are
determined to be 0.6089 m/s2 and 0.0848 m/s2 respectively
while that of passive suspension system is 1.7508 m/s2.
From the RMS values of the passenger accelerations of
active and passive suspension at a frequency of 4 Hz as seen
in Fig 12, it can be stated that ,by using the vehicle with the
passive suspension a person can comfortably travel up to 45
min and using the vehicle with active CM suspension a
Figure.11
person can comfortably travel up to 2 hour, while using
E. SuspensionModel: active ADM suspension a person can comfortably travel
more than 8 hours. This comparison clearly shows that
active suspension gives better passenger comfort and that
the active suspension with acceleration dependent method
(ADM) gives still more better passenger comfort.

VI. CONCLUSION

The potential for improved ride comfort and better road

holding using LQR controller design is examined and also
dealt with two controller design approaches ,namely
conventional method (CM) and acceleration dependent
method(ADM).
By using ISO 2631 standard for whole body vibration
exposure, we found that RMS acceleration values are
Figure.12

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reduced to around 50% for CM and around 90% for ADM. [5] Shahian,B. and Hassul,M., Control System Design Using Matlab. New
Jersy:Prentice-Hall International,Inc.,2001
Further more, active suspension system provides improved [6] G.J.Steein P.Mucka. “Theoretical investigations of a linear planar
road holding ability. It is concluded that active suspension model of a passenger car with seated people”. In Proceedings of the
system using ADM gives better performance than the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, volume 217 Part D of Journal of
passive system. Automobile Engineering,2003.
[7] Semiha Türkay, Hüseyin Akçay ,”Aspects of achievable performance
for quarter-car active suspensions” Journal of Sound and Vibration,
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