• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.27-32
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• 2002

Semi-active suspension systems are greatly expected to be in the mainstream of future controlled suspensions fur passenger cars. In this study, a continuous variable damper for a passenger car suspension is developed. It is controlled actively and exhibits high performance with light weight, low cost, and low energy consumption. To get fast response of the damper, reverse damping mechanism is adapted, and to get small pressure change rate after blow-off, a pilot controlled proportional valve is designed and analyzed. The reverse continuous variable damper is designed as a HS-SH damper which offers good body control with reduced transferred input force from tire, compared with any other type of suspension system. The damper structure is designed, so that rebound and compression damping force can be tuned independently, of which variable valve is placed externally. The rate of pressure change with respect to the flow rate after blow-offbecomes smooth when the fixed orifice size increases. Damping forces are measured with the change of the solenoid current at the different piston velocities to confirm the maximum hysteresis of 20N, linearity, and variance of damping farce. The damping farce variance is wide and continuous, and is controlled by the spoof opening, of which scheme is usually adapted in proportional valves. The reverse continuous variable damper developed in this study is expected to be utilized in the semi-active suspension systems in passenger cars after its performance and simplicity of the design is confirmed through real car test.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.85-90
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• 2000

In this paper, a robust $H_{\infty}$ a controller for semi-active suspension system is proposed. For the improvement of ride quality, the robust $H_{\infty}$ controller is designed to satisfy robust stability and road disturbance attenuation using an $H_{\infty}$ control design procedure. The performances of the design controller for some road conditions are evaluated by computer simulation and finally these simulation results show the usefulness and applicability of the proposed robust $H_{\infty}$ controller.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.128-137
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• 2003

Continuously variable damper can yield diverse damping forces for a single damping velocity. It is widely used in the semi-active suspension system since, with right control logics, it can enhance ride comfort compared to the passive damper while not degrading driving safety. A key to the successful design of the continuously variable damper is the knowledge of its complex and nonlinear characteristics. In this paper, research has been done for analyzing characteristics of the continuously variable damper. Various damper components have been investigated and their effects upon the force-velocity characteristics of the damper have been examined. The effects of the damper characteristics change upon ride comfort and driving safety have also been investigated by numerical simulations.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.419-434
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• 2014

In this paper, the electromagnetic damper (EMD), which is composed of a permanent-magnet rotary DC motor, a ball screw and a nut, is considered to be analyzed as a semi-active damper. The main objective pursued in the paper is to study the two degrees of freedom (DOF) model of the semi-active electromagnetic suspension system (SAEMSS) performance and energy regeneration controlled by on-off and continuous damping control strategies. The nonlinear equations of the SAEMSS must therefore be extracted. The effects of the EMD characteristics on ride comfort, handling performance and road holding for the passive electromagnetic suspension system (PEMSS) are first analyzed and damping control strategies effects on the SAEMSS performance and energy regeneration are investigated next. The results obtained from the simulation show that the SAEMSS provides better performance and more energy regeneration than the PEMSS. Moreover, the results reveal that the on-off hybrid control strategy leads to better performance in comparison with the continuous skyhook control strategy, however, the energy regeneration of the continuous skyhook control strategy is more than that of the on-off hybrid control strategy (except for on-off skyhook control strategy).

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.807-815
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• 2000

In this paper, modified discrete time preview control algorithms for active and semi-active suspension systems are derived based on a simple mathematical 4 DOF half-car model. The discrete time preview control laws for ride comfort are employed in the simulation. The algorithms for MIMO system contain control strategies reacting against body forces that occur at cornering, accelerating, braking, or under payload, in addition to road disturbances. Matlab simulation results for the discrete time case are compared with those for the continuous time case and the appropriateness of the discrete time algorithms are verified by the of simulation results. Passive, active, and semi-active system responses to a sinusoidal input and an asphalt road input are analysed and evaluated. The simulation results show the extent of performance degradation due to numerical errors related to the length of the sampling time and time delay.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.452-457
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• 2000

This paper presents control response of a semi-active electro-rheological(ER) suspension. After showing dynamic characteristics of the ER damper, 1/4 car model is formulated by incorporating with the time constant of the damping force. $H_{\infty}$ controller compensating mass and time constant uncertainties is then designed in order to suppress vibration level of the suspension. The control responses such as vertical acceleration are presented.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.453-464
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• 2002

The electrorheological(ER) fluid is a new material and is used for the mechanical motion devices such as semi-active suspensions, high speed clutches, and vibration isolators. The ER fluid applications need high voltage power supplies having special requirements to control the viscosity of the ER fluid. This paper deals with the development of the high voltage power supply for the semi-active suspension system using the ER fluid. The characteristics of the ER fluid are analyzed, and the design and implementation of the high voltage power supply are presented. It is well demonstrated through the experiment that the developed high voltage power supply shows a good performance suitable for the ER fluid application.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.1 s.256
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• pp.129-138
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• 2007

In this paper, a modified sensitivity control for the semi-active suspension system with a magneto-rheological (MR) damper is investigated. A 2-d.o.f quarter-car model together with a 6th order polynomial model for the MR damper is considered. For the purpose of suppressing the vertical acceleration of the sprung mass, the square of the vertical acceleration is defined as a cost function and a modified sensitivity control that updates the current input in the negative gradient of the cost function is proposed. The implementation of the proposed algorithm requires only the measurement of the relative displacement of the suspension deflection. The local stability of equilibria of the closed loop nonlinear system is proved by investigating the eigenvalues of the linearized ones. Through simulations, the passive suspension, the skyhook control, and the proposed modified sensitivity control are compared.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 1997.04a
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• pp.394-399
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• 1997

This paper presents a new concept of a semi-active suspension system for a commercial vehicle seat. The proposed suspension system features an ER(electro-rheological) damper which can produce continuously tunable damping forces by control electric fields. A dynamic model of the ER damper is first achieved by incorporating Bingham property of the ER fluid, followed by the formulation of governing equations of motion for the suspension system. A sliding mode controller is then designed on the basis of the hyper-plane sliding mode scheme. The effectiveness of the proposed control system is evaluated by investigating control performance for vibration isolation.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.121-126
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• 2006

In the recent years, the development of computer-controlled suspension dampers and actuators has improved the trade-off between the vehicle handling and ride comfort, and has led to the development of various damper control policies. The skyhook control is an effective control strategy for suppressing vehicle vibration. In this study, a fuzzy skyhook control is proposed and tuned by a genetic algorithm to improve ride comfort. The proposed fuzzy skyhook control is applied to a quarter-car model in order to compare its performance with continuous skyhook suspensions. To obtain optimized fuzzy skyhook control, scale factors and in-out membership functions are tuned by a genetic algorithm. The simulation results show that the fuzzy skyhook control offers more effective suspension performance over the continuous skyhook control.